President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” comment has become a
top campaign issue.
The uproar began when Obama, speaking on July 13 in Roanoke,
Virginia, emphasized how an individual’s success in business is
directly dependent upon the government’s spending on roads,
bridges, education, etc.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some
help,” he proclaimed. “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 Romney campaign responded by scheduling “We Did Build This”
events in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, New
Hampshire, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, and
Florida, featuring small business owners who wanted to respond to
Obama’s perceived deprecation of entrepreneurship, individualism,
and small business success.
Romney called Obama’s remark “extraordinarily revealing,” an
unveiling of “an ideology that somehow says it’s the collective and
government that we need to celebrate.”
The Obama campaign claims that the “If you’ve got a business,
you didn’t build that” comment is being taken “out of context” and
that Obama’s “didn’t build that” words were referring back to the
“roads and bridges” in the prior sentence.
They’re maintaining that Obama just got the grammar wrong,
misaligning a plural “roads and bridges” with a singular “that.”
The campaign is arguing that it may have sounded like he was saying
“you didn’t build that business” but what he was really saying was
“you didn’t build that roads and bridges.”
Either way, President Obama now has a television ad playing that
attempts to calm the uproar. “Of course Americans build their own
businesses,” he states, looking directly into the camera. “Every
day, hardworking people sacrifice to meet a payroll, create jobs,
and make our economy run. And what I said was that we need to stand
behind them, as America always has.”
Well, that’s not what he originally said, but it sounds good,
sounds better than trying to stir up class resentments and votes by
saying that freeloading bosses in America are riding around each
day on the collective’s roads and bridges and not paying their
“fair share.”
There’s no mention from the White House about how America’s top
income groups contribute a disproportionate amount in taxes to pay
for all the roads, bridges, tunnels, Senate salaries, White House
parties, green bankruptcies, missiles and bombs. “The rich” are far
from getting a “free ride.”
To further assist in calming things down, an NBC News clip is
running that shows Mitt Romney opening the 2002 Winter Olympics.
“We salute you Olympians, both because you dreamed and because you
paid the price to make your dreams real,” he says. “You guys pushed
yourself, drove yourself, sacrificed, trained and competed time and
again at winning and losing.”
Romney then says the following, allegedly delivering the same
message President Obama delivered in Roanoke: “You Olympians,
however, know you didn’t get here solely on your own power. For
most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your
hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to
organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of
those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians — lets’
also cheer the parents, coaches and communities.”
There’s a difference, however, between what Romney and Obama
said. Romney was saying nothing more than what is standard at
graduation ceremonies — a public thanks to parents, spouses and
teachers, a recognition that individual accomplishments are often
helped along by others.
President Obama, instead, was arguing for more spreading around
of the nation’s wealth, more income redistribution, more societal
leveling.
Romney, in contrast, wasn’t trying to make a case for a
redistribution of medals.
