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Special Report
After Roanoke
Promoting entrepreneurship instead of perpetuating crony capitalism.
President Obama recently made a stunning remark about owners and workers under free enterprise. He said, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
Who? Ultimately, the government.
Free enterprise empowers entrepreneurs who have ideas and imagination, investors who take risks, and workers who hone their skills and offer their labor. Our exceptional country was built up by the ingenuity, capital, and sweat contributed by individuals who risked it all to build a brighter future for their families. America was founded on the shared belief that government’s primary role is to safeguard our God-given freedoms, as individual initiative and a strong civil society are what make prosperity and flourishing possible. America is exceptional for this very reason — no other country in the history of mankind was founded on such a powerful idea.
The President’s policies have stifled this commitment to economic freedom, resulting in millions of Americans facing painful economic hardships. In the President’s revealing rhetoric, we gain insight into why the economy remains so anemic and the future looks so bleak.
In this President’s telling, success is a function of government beneficence — not individual initiative. His outlook not only makes for terrible economics; it also reveals moral confusion. The issue that separates our President from our Founders is a moral one: freedom and individual initiative, or big government alternatives to freedom?
President Obama’s comments reflect an ideology that casts the private sector as an arena driven by greed and indifference to the well-being of others. In government-directed economies, the collective takes priority over the individual. The moral ideal is equal results.
That approach could not be further removed from the real world.
Every successful individual knows that his or her achievement depends on a community of persons working together. We strengthen our bonds with each other as we offer our unique gifts to others: some are inventors, some investors, others are laborers, managers, or marketers while customers reward the best producers and providers by buying their products and services. We work to advance the common good through our free association with each other, not through a coercive government directing our actions. Each human being has inherent dignity and unique gifts. Meaning is derived as we voluntarily share our individual gifts and talents with each other, in mutual assistance to meet our neighbors’ needs, thriving in ways we could not if isolated individuals as caricatured in the President’s distorted view of America’s commitment to free enterprise.
Of course government has a critical role to play: establishing neutral rules that enable open competition and securing peace and order with courts, a standard currency, defense forces, first responders, teachers, infrastructure, and a safety net for the most vulnerable. Government can help create the space for innovation and prosperity, but government does not fill that space. Activist government overreach and ongoing economic stagnation have shown us why Washington should not try to displace what is best left to civil society.
There are pernicious side effects from Washington’s intrusion into ever-increasing sectors of our economy and aspects of our lives. Big-government economics breeds crony capitalism. It’s corrupt, anything but neutral, and a barrier to broad participation in prosperity. Both political parties have been guilty of this trend. Most recently, Washington has pursued polices that pick winners and losers in specific sectors of our economy and that favor well-connected corporations and union bosses with bureaucratic access, tax loopholes, and regulatory waivers. Think Solyndra, bankrupt after a $500 million taxpayer guarantee, and Fisker Automotive, whose taxpayer loans created jobs in Finland, not the U.S.
The moral case for individual initiative in a free economy holds that people have a God-given right to use their creativity to produce things that improve our lives. A free economy and strong communities honor the dignity of every person, rewarding effort with justice, promoting upward mobility, and building solidarity among citizens. The President’s collective vision of a government-centered society — reflected in his troubling rhetoric and failed policies — divides class against class and belittles fair rewards for workers, entrepreneurs, and investors—America’s real builders.
We face a defining choice in November. Mitt Romney’s clear vision is very different from the President. America’s founding principles of freedom and equal opportunity will guide his policies as he repairs the damage, which the current administration’s agenda has inflicted on this country. We don’t need to change the nature of America. We need to recommit to our founding principles and rebuild what has been broken — and this comeback begins by replacing the current leadership in the White House.
About the Author
Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican candidate for vice president, is a Congressman from Wisconsin and the chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (36) | Leave a comment
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.24.12 @ 6:23AM
Just for clarification about replacing "the current leadership in the White House."
Leadership is getting people to follow you out of respect because of your knowledge which leads to satisfaction for those who follow.
There are others who lead by fear or by playing on the ignorance of others. Those people are only leaders in the sense they are in charge however they are simply dictators.
That's what we have in the White House.
Ken (Old Texican)| 7.24.12 @ 6:40AM
Paul,
well spoken..short and sweet.
I must tell you that I am somewhat fearful for the next few months. Communists DO NOT want to give up power once achieved.
I just can't see Obama and crew playing out the campaign hoping for a good result.
The "British" are indeed coming. Goodness only knows from what direction.
TLP| 7.24.12 @ 7:00AM
Indeed.
If anyone thinks that "The One they've been waiting for" for 100 Years, is just gonna go away quietly, you're sorely mistaken.
The Votes will be counted in Spain.
Does anyone believe that President Prince of Lies doesn't already have a John Daleyesque Plan in place, for the Theft of this Election, once the Ballots leave these Shores?
I'm still pulling for an X Factor.
Somebody with No Job, No Savings, who's lost his Home, his Family, and his Self Respect, due to Caligula.
Someone with nothing left to lose, except his Country.
We're a Country of 300+ Million.
I'm bettin he's out there, somewhere.
Hell, I'm bettin THEY'RE out there, somewhere.
These things tend to end the same way, throughout History.
Truth to Power| 7.24.12 @ 8:55AM
This is how the big O gets it done.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/.....48904.html
The left is corrupt and that which is not corrupt is brain dead.
Nancy in NC| 7.24.12 @ 9:33AM
That's recycling taxpayers' money at its finest. And for sure it happens on the other side as well.
No improvement until the American people DEMAND more from elected leaders, and I don't see that happening.
Nancy in NC| 7.24.12 @ 9:32AM
How did this country get to the point when we elect someone with such a different view of American values? I don't see much change for the future either. American children don't learn much at home or at school about what it means to be an American. Too many are learning how to work the system, and the other half are tuned out through techy toy, drugs or stupid TV shows.
One more term of Mr. Obama and we can put the fork in America as we will be done.
MK48| 7.24.12 @ 10:35AM
Load the waggon the MULE is BLIND..............
Al Adab| 7.24.12 @ 11:18AM
How did we elect such a one you ask? We spent eight years hearing about how terrible Bush was every day. We voted for Change remember? Well, we got it. Now we know what "fundamentally transform America" really meant. The most prosperous, free society on earth has been transformed (over many decades true) int0 a society of dependence, jealosy, and victims. Can we and will we ever recover the traditions which allowed so many to excell or shall we remain, as we have become, a collective envious of one anothers successes?
irish19| 7.24.12 @ 7:24PM
"We spent eight years hearing about how terrible Bush was every day." Bingo!!
The left never forgave Bush for winning in 2000. He had to contend with the final bits of air coming out of the .com bubble, 9/11, and then the mortgage bubble (thank you CRA, Fanny, Freddy, Barney, and Franklin). On top of that, each and every day he got a heapin' helpin' of hatin' from the left and the legacy media (I know I'm repeating myself). Yet, had the Republicans nominated someone with an actual spine, they still could have won against the liar in chief, the man who never was.
Wiley| 7.24.12 @ 5:00PM
How the country got to this point is exactly the question to ask, and I'm afraid the answer is that we got here primarily through the general dumbing-down of America to which you've alluded.
Too many people are all too willing to accept unquestioningly the demagoguery of those who tell them what they want to hear -- like the ecstatic crowd at Obama's acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for President where he spouted "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal" and other such messianic proclamations. Or the woman who was eager for Obama to be elected because then she "won't have to worry about paying my mortgage anymore". Never mind asking how such things are going to be accomplished.
If the country is very fortunate, perhaps the disappointment of their messiah's failure to deliver whatever change they hoped for and assumed would be magically delivered will shake some of these people out of their delusional stupor.
Anthony| 7.24.12 @ 9:37AM
Obozo's pathetic faulty tautology shows he truly was an affirmative action admission to Columbia, because nobody that stupid gets into Columbia, even by today's standards.
All of civilization is a process of building upon what others have produced or provided. As I said in a previous post, Ford benefited from the wheel, Bill Gates perhaps from a favorite teacher, who by the way, was paid by we the tax payers, and so were the guys who built the roads and bridges. (The only unpaid road and bridge builders were in FRD's alphabet soup make work projects). And don't forget, it was the Romans who built those aquaducts!!!
Obozo is not only clueless, he despises success, especially individual success. He buys into this radical philosophical notion that there is no such thing as individual achievement, it's all a product of some amalgamation of collective effort.
Of course, as others have pointed out, roads and bridges exist in totalitarian and backwards nations, yet they never managed to build a $15 Trillion economy with those roads and bridges, American Constitutional-republican principles did!!!
And there in lies the rub. Our Kenyan Muslim Marxist president hates America, as does his fellow leftist academics.
American EXCEPTIONALISM makes them want to puke. Obozo has said it himself, America cannot stand above and alone any longer, we must be a nation of firsts among firsts.
What we need to be is a nation without Obozo, the D party and RINOs.
JD| 7.24.12 @ 1:43PM
What distinguishes Obama's speech is that he's not merely recognizing that we all, as Isaac Newton said, "stand on the shoulders of giants." He's claiming that we owe a monetary debt to others - a UNPAID debt of vague, open-ended measure.
Of course, he wants government to enforce payment of this debt. But not an a consistent way. The employee will not be made to contribute more to his employer. The poor will not be made to contribute more to the support network. No, the only payments Obama will "help" with flow from rich to poor. And when will the rich finish paying this debt? Never, because the amount of the debt is unknown and will never be tracked!
For Obama's supporters to retort that he was "only talking about roads and bridges" is to distract from the clear theme of the speech - the unpaid, immeasurable debt obligation. This theme is seen in far more than just the "you didn't build that" quote. Besides, why talk about the subject at all, if not to suggest an action to be taken?
Al Adab| 7.24.12 @ 9:37AM
The administration has made its position clear, only the collective is a legitimate concern. The opposition must be just as clear. We seek to create an economy as open as possible so that more may prosper every yeatr. An economy in which risk taking to pursue opportunity is encouraged not punished. Our goal must be to make it easier, not harder for people to earn a living and follow their own paths to success.
If this administration believes that success derives from its benevolent dictatorship we must replace that theory with one of liberty and economic freedom. Less regulation, fewer imposed costs and lower business taxes will go far in creating an economy where many may succeed and fewer are trapped in dependence.
Pecos Pete| 7.24.12 @ 10:43AM
Amen!
Kwan| 7.24.12 @ 11:26AM
Alinskyite Hillary calls our economic system ( free enterprise/capitalism) "Darwinian". In other words the survival of the fittest. To remedy this the Democrats want to create a welfare state populated by a dependent and controlled citizenry, who will vote for Democrats ad infinitum in order to keep da gub-a-mint cheese coming. This will result in the United States devolving into a third-world country led by dimwitted Marxist bureaucrats, whose sole purpose will be the oppression and exploitation of the people. Our current system leads to prosperity and freedom (once we rid ourselves of these Democrat fifth-columnists). The path championed by Obama leads to the end of prosperity and freedom.
JD| 7.24.12 @ 11:44AM
Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to believe Darwin's theories are the reason mankind has gotten to where it is. Why, then, do they hate Darwinism now? Why would they seek to run counter to what made us? Self-loathing?
Kwan| 7.24.12 @ 12:55PM
Let's remember that the Democrat Party base is the "unfittest" ( the moochers, slackers, layabouts, and deadbeats ). It's the unfittest that vote for them and give them their political power. The "fittest" are the enemies of the Democrats and their agenda, and are seen by the Democrats as an obstacle to the creation of the Orwellian People's Republic that they tell the suckers, saps, and morons will solve the never-ending problems of the underclass.
BackToBasics| 7.24.12 @ 11:58AM
I think Romney will win in a fair election if there were no vote fraud by democrats. I think Romney will set policies in motion that will help the economy.
Yet, ultimately, if we do NOT control our borders, the demographic shift that is already taking place in large part because of our open borders will ensure that democrats win the presidency every election since already Hipanics vote mostly for democrats.
Time is short on that one.
JD| 7.24.12 @ 12:09PM
What Democrats are perpetrating would be scandalous if a private entity tried to do it. They foster dependence, insisting that people accept a government role that many do not want, then use what they've forced on us to obligate us to them forever. It's blackmail.
JimH| 7.24.12 @ 12:18PM
Many of the GOP are just as complicit as the Dems in crony capitalism. They need to promote policies which are pro market. These are not necessarily the same as pro business.
PolishKnight| 7.24.12 @ 12:53PM
Even as many conservatives may bridle at the term crony capitalism as a creation of the left, the term capitalism is also supposedly their creation. So let's use it against them and ask this interesting question:
What's the point of leftism today? Heck, is Obama really even a communist or rather just a fascist, as defined economically, who wants to buddy up with outsources and cronies rather than take them to the basement with the Romanovs and finish them off? What is Obama and the modern Democrat party really about anyway? Instead of Sweden, they're giving us Detroit. Even I would prefer to move to Sweden (heck, the weather is probably better!)
That would make a great conservative commercial criticizing the left:
"What's the point?" What is the left trying to deliver?
Oh, thanks to Ryan for his illustrious input to this blog! Huffington Post, eat your heart out!
Who Knows?| 7.24.12 @ 12:34PM
“You didn’t built it”---four words that will live in infamy!
Make no mistake. Obama, in effect, is a not vetted domestic “terrorist”, who has been sneak attacking America for going on four years.
And, you thought we lived in an age of free flowing information, as compared to the bad old days when such a morally obtuse dude like JFK could get away with dicking mobsters molls, or FDR could escape scrutiny about his polio.
My parents were FDR antagonists. I wish I’d have asked them how they felt when they heard about how the press failed to inform them of his wheelchair reality. Of course, the vast majority of citizens are “realized” when it comes to politics.
I was, when a kid of 18---“politics”? Ticks on poles!
Any business was created by an INDISPENSABLE person!
Time to rehabilitate an old poem---
If it is to be
It is up to me.
Ten words of two letters each.
I am the One who is with you now.
fmm| 7.24.12 @ 12:58PM
Sir: This article is an excellent example of sound thinking and principles and why you are so much needed in congress.
JD| 7.24.12 @ 1:35PM
CNN is running a fun convo right now:
http://money.cnn.com//2012/07/.....e_business
Seems nobody will take trucking jobs because they're not good enough. The commenters, CNN flunkies one and all, complain that this tiring, not-fun job pays a mere median American wage. They think that everyone should have an above-median job!
And they think it's possible for an entire population to be above-median.
Thank you, Obama!
Kingofthenet| 7.24.12 @ 1:53PM
Problem with Trickle Down, is the water pressure, it's not even a drip down.
Al Adab| 7.24.12 @ 2:00PM
...but King,
It was St, JFK who, when arguing for his massive tax cuts, said, "A rising tide lifts all ships". Every time government policy makes it easier for business, the economy expands, people get jobs and the national wealth grows. Every time regulation, taxes and imposed costs increase people must do with less. When will they ever learn?
Kwan| 7.24.12 @ 2:15PM
The ability to learn takes a minimal amount of intelligence. Do you see any indication of intelligence in these apologists for the failures of the left's agenda?
JD| 7.24.12 @ 2:56PM
Kingofthenet is right. That is why we should not support the Left's trickle-based agenda. "Spreading the wealth around" is not "better for everyone."
Warrior| 7.24.12 @ 4:33PM
Water does not need pressure to go from the top down. It only needs pressure to move from the bottom up. Problem with the bottom up is that once the supply is exhausted, there is nothing left to pump/move upwards. Even that should be simple enough for you.
spike59| 7.24.12 @ 4:49PM
oh, dear me...you're as stupid about physics as you are about politics?????
drake1456| 7.24.12 @ 2:50PM
Aditionally, government FIRST collects taxes on income earned THEN uses it, sometimes foolishly, to do the things the president alludes to.So, in the end, it is STILOL the american taxpayer who builds a business, NOT him and the ever-growing government.Keep up the great work Mr Ryan.
PolishKnight| 7.24.12 @ 3:19PM
I think Obama is panicking over how his statement is hurting him because it's costing him a key electorate: non-white racial minorities who are small business owners who voted for Obama and the Democrat party due to race identity politics. Now Obama has aimed at their livelihood and he KNOWS this will cost him, big time, both in terms of votes but also MONEY from such relatively small donors he could snatch up from various tours of the country. Even though Obamacare shouldn't hit small businesses with fewer than 50 employees in the NEAR future, there's always the possibility it will hit them for existing benefits they are giving out for employees and this is a painful reminder.
tecumseh36| 7.24.12 @ 6:37PM
Id rather have a military dictatorship, than have to endure 4 more years of Obama and socialism.
Kingofthenet| 7.24.12 @ 11:29PM
You WILL....I will be the Commandant....
JJones| 7.24.12 @ 6:57PM
Mr Ryan if you truly believe big govt has failed why are you supporting a candidate who believes in big govt farm,ethanol and oil subsidies and who governed for 4 years as the same schilling type of crony capitalist as Bush and Obama. If you truly believed in small govt you would switch your support to Gary Johnson the only person who has a record of balancing budgets and who believes in true small govt conservatives ideal
SoSueMe001| 7.24.12 @ 7:48PM
A very effective and convincing article, Representative Ryan, but if you recall, we've tried this with Republicans before and look what it bought us. It appears you'll get one more chance and you'd better not screw it all up like you did that last time!