Mitt Romney's Passion

If Mitt gets any more passionate he is liable to start taking responsibility for what happened at Bain when he was CEO, Chairman of the Board and sole owner.

And the reference to firefighters in the next paragraph makes this even more clear, I think. Note the reference “some things”:

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

And if you watch the video, you can see he had an awkward time phrasing it to refer to bridges and roads:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/jul/15/picketvideo-obama-if-youve-got-business-you-didnt-/

Obama’s statement might be ambiguous. I’m having a hard time understanding AngryKrugman’s interpretation. What does having a business have to do with building roads? And who is the somebody else who is supposedly doing the road building? Is it only non-business-owners that are responsible for there being roads?

As the Left gets more and more desperate, one can expect to see more attacks on business and free enterprise, including questioning of longstanding business practices.
These would include questioning the complex cross-holding patterns, tax avoidance strategies etc.

The answer business needs to give has to be better than just “it is good for us”. Eight years of Compassionate Conservativism has led to semi-socialist present and the conservative paeans to the self-made man are just going to deliver the nation to the waiting arms of socialists.

“Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

Just wondering how much nonsense one can stuff into just one sentence…

Obama’s statements (and meaning) are remarkable for two reasons:

1.) They are misleading to the point of being totally false. The Government didn’t invent or build any of this – not roads, the Internet, not F-15’s or B-52s. Private Contractors invented and built it all – with taxpayer funding. In most instances, the Government provided only a ‘Product Performance Specification’ and in many cases, not even that – especially in the case of the Internet.

2.) Obama made these misleading statements absent the assistance of a TelePrompter. That’s very telling. I think we’ve heard what our President actually believes.

@AngryKrugman,
You truly believe one does not make more sense here?
Correct.
I also have to ask again why you didn’t include the language after the quote and a direct link to the video to provide more context.
Because I thought the quote I gave gave enough context.
A few weeks ago, you posted about trust.
No, I didn’t.

@AngryKrugman,
Thanks. I had done a search on “trust” and this didn’t show up.

Angry, I think obviously he meant to say that the business owners didn’t build the businesses *on their own*, they had help, but he mangled it, as people sometimes do when speaking. I don’t see how the statement makes sense at all as referring to roads and bridges, which have nothing to do with owning a business. What he ended up saying is then either uninteresting as simply a mistake, or revealing as a mistake, and I don’t see any reason to prefer one to the other.

Seems clear enough to me that Obama was referring to “that (infrastructure)”.

But to David’s actual point, yes Romney jumped on it with passion (regardless of his actual interpretation, which is fine, this is politics). The question is what can this passionate businessman actually accomplish in the role of President? Obviously he will try to lower taxes, though it seems that just about any Republican would do that. What other special MBA magic does he bring to the table?

@ Phoenix Musings,

And now perhaps I should have added more context. Obama talked about hard work and smarts, too. The preceding paragraphs specifically were in reference to taxes, pointing out things like hard work, smarts and sacrifice were necessary, but not sufficient conditions to success. @ David or anyone else, how different is what Obama says here from what Romney says at 0:50? Does this sound like Obama “attacking success” or suggesting people shouldn’t work hard to elevate themselves in life?

“And then I’d talk to some working folks, and I’d think about Michelle’s family — her dad who was a blue-collar worker, worked at a water filtration plant in Chicago, and her mom was a secretary. And yet, despite never having a lot, there was so much love and so much passion — and her dad had MS, so he had to wake up an hour earlier than everybody else just to get to work because it took him that long to get dressed, and he could barely walk. But he never missed a day’s work — because he took pride in the idea that, you know what, I’m going to earn my way and look after my family. (Applause.) And I’d see that same pride in the people I was talking to.

And what this reminded me of was that, at the heart of this country, its central idea is the idea that in this country, if you’re willing to work hard, if you’re willing to take responsibility, you can make it if you try. (Applause.) That you can find a job that supports a family and find a home you can make your own; that you won’t go bankrupt when you get sick. That maybe you can take a little vacation with your family once in a while — nothing fancy, but just time to spend with those you love. Maybe see the country a little bit, maybe come down to Roanoke. (Applause.) That your kids can get a great education, and if they’re willing to work hard, then they can achieve things that you wouldn’t have even imagined achieving. And then you can maybe retire with some dignity and some respect, and be part of a community and give something back. (Applause.) ”

But no matter where they worked, no matter how times were tough, they always had faith that there was something different about this country; that in this country, you have some God-given rights: a life in liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and a belief that all of us are equal — (applause) — and that we’re not guaranteed success, but we’re guaranteed the right to work hard for success. (Applause.)

As for the specific lines discussed in this post, here is the build-up:

Well, first of all, like I said, the only way you can pay for that — if you’re actually saying you’re bringing down the deficit — is to cut transportation, cut education, cut basic research, voucherize Medicare, and you’re still going to end up having to raise taxes on middle-class families to pay for this $5 trillion tax cut. That’s not a deficit reduction plan. That’s a deficit expansion plan.
I’ve got a different idea. I do believe we can cut — we’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts. We can make some more cuts in programs that don’t work, and make government work more efficiently. (Applause.) Not every government program works the way it’s supposed to. And frankly, government can’t solve every problem. If somebody doesn’t want to be helped, government can’t always help them. Parents — we can put more money into schools, but if your kids don’t want to learn it’s hard to teach them. (Applause.)

But you know what, I’m not going to see us gut the investments that grow our economy to give tax breaks to me or Mr. Romney or folks who don’t need them. So I’m going to reduce the deficit in a balanced way. We’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts. We can make another trillion or trillion-two, and what we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more. (Applause.) And, by the way, we’ve tried that before — a guy named Bill Clinton did it. We created 23 million new jobs, turned a deficit into a surplus, and rich people did just fine. We created a lot of millionaires.

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. 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. (Applause.)

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.

Thanks, David. And sorry for getting snippy. I do usually find you fair–see, e.g., Nixon/Carter price controls the other day–so I was a bit surprised by this.

Can’t wait for t-shirt.

“If you have a business…

Thank a bureaucrat.”

On the quote, either way it doesn’t matter.

Think of how insignficant infrastructure and education are in the budget.

Also think of how we spend more and more and get less and less for those dollars.

Ok AngryKrugma, he comes off better with the added context. I still don’t like it that if you work hard you can be a success-up until $250,000. Then it becomes like a game of Whack-a-Mole.

Chris Koresko,

Good point, but it’s not exactly a point president Obama would want to make. He is epitome of cronyism.

[Comment removed for irrelevance.–Econlib Ed.]

Can’t we turn Obama’s remark upside down? Say to an advocate of government, “Sure you invested in roads and bridges but you didn’t do that alone. Someone created jobs and wealth. Someone earned the money you taxed to do it. You didn’t create that.”