Let’s have a little reality check shall we. First of all, the editing in this clip is soooooooo false, its embarrassing. Isn’t there enough real stuff the Republicans could throw at Obama without making up BS?
Before we continue, let’s start first with the actual transcript. I know, I know it so much more fun to just make it up, but for this exercise in truth, I invite you to just play along for my amusement.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business–you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”
Really, does anyone with at least an 8th grade education not under what “THAT” was referring back to? Was it the best grammar use, probably not, maybe President Obama just figured that WE were smart enough to understand that THAT meant roads, bridges, etc etc.
I would add MORE to the premise that investment in infrastructure is critical to the success of private entrepreneurship. I would say that when we need a society that is healthy, financially AND physically, so then THAT society is able to buy those goods and services that make private business possible.
My favorite paragraph was the New Yorker:
More than “that,” Obama’s point isn’t exactly a radical one. As Gopnik continues, “It’s the premise at the very heart of all free-market theory as Adam Smith–the guy whose profile is on every libertarian tie–conceived it.”
Smith [believed] in public goods: his state has an obligation to build roads and schools, establish an army, build bridges and highways, and do all the other things necessary for a sane polity in which the market can function naturally. Everyone should pay for them, and the rich should always pay more than others. “The rich should contribute to the public expense not only in proportion to their revenue,” Smith writes, “but something more than in that proportion.”
My friend Bill Golden, a repatriated Independent, previous Republican, said it best regarding the utter unintended hypocrisy of Jack Gilchrist. He gave permission for me to re-post, and so, I shall!
Meet Jack Gilchrist of New Hampshire. Jack is a smart person, has worked hard and has built a great business.
However, … Jack has just put together a new ad for the Romney campaign highlighting how he built his business himself without outside help:
Jack began his business in the late 1980s with just under $500,000 in guaranteed loans from the federal Small Business Administration at rates that he couldn’t get from a bank of he applied on his own. Jack also got almost $500,000 in federally-funded New England Trade Adjustment Assistance Center funds to match his SBA loan.
In the 1990s Jack expanded his business with $800,000 of in tax-exempt revenue bonds issued by the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority to set up a second manufacturing plant and purchase equipment to produce high definition television broadcasting equipment.
Along the way Jack has prospered from a number of small business setaside contracts from the federal government. Jack is probably a great guy — he is just caught up in the moment of it all.
He is someone that is just taking advantage of what was offered but believes that he could have done it otherwise if he had to … although probably not, or maybe so.
Excellent post, Elena. Bill Golden’s finale really demonstrated what Obama meant. No man is an island and we do have responsibility to give back….even if just a little.
There is just too much “I got mines” nowadays.
Fair is fair–I won’t consider Obama’s quote out of context when the left owns up to its parsing of Romney’s “I don’t care about the poor” snippet.
Sorry, Obama was off-teleprompter and saying what he really feels…people are nothing and the federal government should run our lives cradle-to-grave. It’s just a coincidence that the whole “Julia” thing emphasized how a poor helpless woman can’t get through life without government help every step of the way. You’re just going to have to accept that he simply said how he felt, and he’s going to have to live with it…..all the way to election day. All that said, cheer up! People seem to have decided that what Obama is saying isn’t so bad! I may not agree with it, but a LOT of people do!
I think if Obama were to check his facts, he would see that the Internet was built by one man…Al Gore! All by himself!
I love it when someone who spends his professional life working in government or government services tries to comment on business. Regardless of what Obama really meant, his tone conveyed hostility toward business, which was appreciated by the audience, judging from its reaction.
The message that I heard was that successful entrepreneurs are no smarter or harder working than others, yet they benefit disproportionately from infrastructure in order to become wealthy. (which is why his statement was interpreted to mean that entrepreneurs cannot take full credit for building their businesses). Accordingly, Obama thinks they owe more to society, and so government has the right to soak them for re-distributive purposes.
Frankly, Obama has no credibility on the issue (having no experience in business), and this is precisely the response I would expect from an administration that cannot bring the unemployment rate below 8%.
Kelly, many people have experience in both the private and public sector. I don’t think Americans are so stupid that they can’t understand “the other side.”
@kelly, I don’t think you read the transcript carefully.
Just out of curiosity, what would YOU do to bring the employment rate below 8%? THIS I have to hear. I keep waiting for those elected to Congress to let us all in on the secret. They got elected based on promises to improve the economy and to reduce unemployment. Still waiting.
If Obama can’t come in and pull it off and the tea party can’t do it….who is left?
I love how people here totally miss the point! It must be hard to immerse yourself so completely in ideology you can’t even acknoweldge the truth.
Oh, and Emma, if Obama were making t-shirts and ads with that out of context quote, I would be embarrassed and NOT defend him.
So, I wonder, is it coincidence that governments that are non functional don’t have a successful free market economy. WHY, why would anyone argue the validity of his point. Show me a country that has a government that has noprovided no infrastructure, no public school system, no protections for the middle class and I will see your point.
@Elena
Uganda?
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth – and then Obama said to the Lord, “you didn’t build that!”
Even if he was talking about roads and bridges – they only exist because of commerce. It’s because of small businesses roads and bridges are built, and they are built with tax dollars. Businesses pay taxes to build infrastructure. So yes they did build THAT! It is insulting to those willing to take a risk and start a business to say what he said.
This line of the very same speech was even more insulting: “I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. ”
Really a business owner didn’t get there because he was hard working?
Obama sayeth unto the Lord: “You think you’re smart?” “There are lots of smart people around!”
The highlight of the election will be the debates. I cannot wait to hear Obama defend his record unteleprompted and slightly provoked.
@Emma, be careful what you wish for. I don’t think you want to be calling on Romney to defend anything. He has pissed off the Brits, the Arab world, and by now, probably the Poles. I suggest we send him to Northern Ireland to ask a few “culture” questions.
Nobody questions the need for infrastructure in order for the economy to thrive. Businesses should and already do pay for bridges, schools, roads, etc through taxes.
The president’s comments suggest however that business is not paying enough, which would hint that he wants to increase its taxes. Why else would he bring this up?
With the economy slowing down and unemployment way too high, his remarks were very unwise. They indicate the possibility that business taxes may rise, which would drive up costs and reduce competitiveness compared to China. Together with projected costs of Obamacare, statements like this have to increase uncertainty and make the business outlook even more bleak.
How is presidential disdain like what was displayed by Obama helpful for the economy which may already be in recession?
I did not get that impression Kelly. I got the idea he was addressing the symbiotic relationship between the two.
Apparently Emma, you didn’t watch the round table health care discussion between Dem and Repub’s when congress was working to pass a comprehensive health care initiative. Obama had no teleprompter and he was clearly in command of the facts regarding costs of health care.
‘How is presidential disdain like what was displayed by Obama helpful for the economy which may already be in recession?”
Pitting Americans against each other–apparently it’s what he thinks makes his version of America great.
@Emma. I am speechless. Obama pits Americans against each other? Bwaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Priceless!!!!
It must really bother you to know that every time Obama goes off-teleprompter, he sticks his foot in his mouth at least 60% of the time. His handlers know that, hence the teleprompter…even when he’s talking to little kids. During the round table discussion, Obama was in charge of HIS facts about Health Care costs. Since then the CBO has warned us that Obamacare will cost a multiple of what he said it would cost (and some of us didn’t need to CBO to tell us that). And anyone who has health insurance through work will tell you that the price is going nowhere but straight up. Nice Job!! All ANYONE has to know is that Obamacare puts lawyers first. That makes it a turd from the get-go.
I am just worried you are going to stop watching Obama and Biden and give your full attention to Romney. I am watching his tour de Europe–or as we Americans know it, The Death of Diplomacy. Hopefully, Elena is going to get a thread up about Romney’d dreadful misunderstandings and subsequent gaffes in Israel.
That’s common knowledge. The only reason the far left laughs at it is because it happens to work very well. Heck, even I don’t care if the rich’s taxes go up. I’m only aware of maybe five politicians in the nation that don’t make their living pitting us all against each other. Obama is just more obvious about it, but there are republicans that are just as good. Is it really your assertion that Obama and his puppeteers do NOT pit Americans against each other? Do you REALLY believe that?
Knowledge? Bwahahahahahahahahahaha! Are you trying to compensate for Romney in England? the Middle East? Has he hit Poland yet?
A wake of diplomatic disaster will lie in his wake.
You know, if anyone is pitting us against each other its the zillionaires…if we go after each other enough, they can laugh all the way to the bank.
Obama is the amateurs against the pros. GTW, one of the best pitters is Sarah Palin. I would say that McCain and Obama were 2 of the least pitters.
Too funny.
Apparently, Romney was right in England. In Poland, Lech Walesa endorsed Romney for President. The Israel Jew-Palestinian gaffe was a good one! I’m not aware that Romney has bowed to kiss the feet of any world leader who hates us yet. If we could just have a president that doesn’t bow and scrape before every other supporter of terrorism, that would be nice!
It doesn’t matter if Romney was right or not. What he said was insulting and stupid.
I don’t think killing the chief terrorist is bowing and scraping…speaking of people saying stupid things. Not shaking a fist in someone’s face isn’t necessarily bowing and scraping.
I’m dying to see how the Clinton-nominating-Obama thing pans out. There are a lot of possibilities for fun there! We all know what Clinton really thinks of Obama. Can it keep it under wraps? It’s like watching a Nascar race waiting for the crash.
There are several theories there. Clinton is now the Grand Old Man of the Democratic Party. He outlasted Chris Dodd, Ted kennedy, Senator Byrd. I would have never thought I would say this 20 years ago.
He wants to pave the way for Hillary so HE can get back in the White House and run things again. I would be ok with that. Very OK as a matter of fact.
I take it back, the “endorsement” by Lech Walesa might have been a Romney BS-story.
I didn’t see that. Lech Walesa is not my favorite person. I think he is a major AH.
Some truth in advertising here, please. This should read “as we hard-left Kool-Aid addicts call it,”
You are forgetting that Romney got a pass from me, even when he probably shouldn’t have. find me one anti Romney thread I have done. You can’t. I supported him.
He screwed up big time.
Before you start with sweeping generalizations and what you perceive as name calling—check the facts. They will bite your tail each and every time.
I am smiling over The Death of Diplomacy. Geez. Why didn’t Romney just ask to borrow Biden?
Here’s a short list, name all those things that Obama has voiced support for. He’s such a great motivator … NOT! After listening to all of his criticisms of various businesses, groups, and beliefs, I have a difficult time feeling patriotic about anything. This all coming from the POTUS no less. Give me someone who makes me feel proud about all that is good with this country, as I’ve had enough negative talk and attacks.
The auto industry
grandparents
As for your patriotism, maybe its you. Doesn’t Team USA do anything for you? How about the National Parks? Don’t they do anything for you?
I don’t need a president to make me feel patriotic.
Hang on tight to that! It’s the one thing you’ve got!
Pokie, …sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to. Delores Claiborn.
So a president that only trashes parts of the US is ok then? Auto industry … because he’ll get the union votes!
SA, he was probably going to get the union vote anyway, at least in this country.
why was it OK for Romney to tell the SLC Olympians that they did not get to where they were all on their own – that it took parents, teachers, coaches and others to get them to the Olympics?
@Pat, and HIM out there in the middle of nowhere to get them there.
What an excellent point. Yes.