Cross posted from Left in Lowell.
The conservative folks in America have been making quite a bit of hay with this quote by President Obama:
If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
In an effort to distract from the refusal of Mitt Romney to release more of his tax returns, the GOP noise machine has focused on the quote above, flogging it like the proverbial dead horse.
So convinced in the focus group tested power of this meme, the Romney campaign crafted this TV ad:
“My father’s hands didn’t build this company? My hands didn’t build this company? My son’s hands aren’t building this company? … President Obama, you’re killing us out here. Through hard work and a little bit of luck, we built this business. Why are you demonizing us for it?”
The problem is ….
Yesterday John DiStaso reported — and Jack Gilchrist confirmed — that Gilchrist Metal Fabricating had a little help from the government after all.
– In the late 1980s, Gilchrist Metal received a U.S. Small Business Administration loan totaling nearly $500,000.
– Gilchrist Metal received matching funds from the federally-funded New England Trade Adjustment Assistance Center (NETAAC).
– In 1999, Gilchrist Metal received $800,000 in tax-exempt revenue bonds issued by the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority.
– Ten percent of his company’s contracts are defense-related including two U.S. Navy sub-contracts last year and a 2008 Coast Guard contract.
(h/t to William Tucker of Blue Hampshire)
Romney talking point … FAIL … How about those tax returns, Mitt?
UPDATE: The Scott Brown campaign doubles down on this meme, even to the degree of parroting the word “demonizing,” as used in the Romney campaign ad above. “Demonizing?” A product of a Frank Luntz focus group?
…of Mr. Gilchrist being interviewed where he almost sounded like he was making Obama’s point. Can’t find a link to post, unfortunately.
You guys are crazy to believe that there is some good way to spin this. Instead you should learn how a business actually works, what creates a business (it’s not roads and bridges) and use that.
Nobody wants to go beg the government for money, but you hold up these programs, military spending, bridges to nowhere, inadequate-at-best public schools like some kind of favor the Democrats are doing for the country.
Businesses create roads and bridges, not the other way around. 10 million people drive over the roads, 10 million kids go to the public school, but very few of them create the business.
And what is Obama going to do with his conclusion except raise taxes and blow it on his zombie constituency? Next you’re going to tell the workers that the government created them.
What the hell are you talking about?
Businesses create value, they offer something which others will pay more for than it costs the business entity to produce. With that differential businesses pay employees who pay taxes on their part of that differential, that is to say their wages and salaries. Businesses also pay taxes on that differential and in other areas such as fuel taxes etc. It is from these revenues that government gains the monies to fund the building of roads, schools, bridges etc.
In what way other than collecting taxes from productive entities would government ever have the wealth required to operate?
That’s all well and good. But in what respect, exactly, does Obama disagree with that?
(Hint: none. Key background: businesses do not build roads and bridges themselves, as I trust you’ll agree, because they are what economists call “public goods.” That’s why governments have to collect taxes and then build them.)
Who is he so angry at? Who is Elizabeth Warren yelling at and chastising? She’s telling someone who did lots of work and put a lot on the line that they deserve no respect for that. “You didn’t build that.” Why don’t they just go into the guys houses and point to their families and say “that’s not your family, you didn’t make this family, you’re lucky we let you live here with them, so watch out buddy!”
And how can everybody be missing the proxy “beleaguered man” in all these ads? In the Scott Brown ad, it shows a tired looking white man when discussing business owners, who make jobs for “people” represented by a smiling black woman working in a lab or something. And the Romney focus group: “My father’s hands didn’t build this company? My hands didn’t build this company? My son’s hands aren’t building this company?” See? It’s just about men wanting respect, and feminists not wanting to give them any.
until the general election then Brown doesn’t have to defend is votes. So what is it now? Respect and feminists. Awesome, let’s do that endlessly for a few months.
Junior Achievement has weighed in.
Seascraper, I don’t know what your business background is, but here’s a little history of mine.
My maternal grandfather started a business. It survives to this day.
My paternal grandfather started a business. It survived past his death until his business partner eventually retired and sold the business.
My father and stepmother started multiple businesses. They continue to thrive.
My mother and stepfather started an award winning business. They shut it down when they decided to retire but now lease their facilities to a young entrepreneur just getting his start.
While I never worked for either of my grandfathers, I played roles in both of my parents’ companies.
A little over 10 years ago, I started my own successful business. It continues to this day.
All this is to say that, while I certainly don’t know everything about business, I know quite a bit, whether learned from a grandparent or a parent or from personal experience. And one thing that I can say, is that you don’t do it alone. Most business owners I’ve met would agree.
So please take your “learn how a business actually works” and stick it in a particular place that I won’t mention but that is not even remotely related to the comments section of a BMG post.
One time you might have noticed was when your take home pay increased in 2011 – with the payroll tax cut.
Doesn’t some learned BMGer have a list of money/support that Bain requested and received from the government (local, state or fed)?
You could start with this.
A long list is available here of Bain porfolio companies recieving government support: http://dirtdiggersdigest.org/archives/2702
A well-reasoned Blomberg piece from just last month is availaable here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-06/romney-critical-of-government-aid-that-helped-bain-profit.html
as it generates a response. It shifts the conversation away from themselves, changes the subject. It will continue to work as long as it generates a response. I’m in no way saying that BMG commenting on it is hurting or helping any candidate, just that in general it drives the conversation. There is a shelf life to this as we’ve seen with Scott Brown on Warren.
What was Brown’s response when he voted against the DISCLOSE Act? Brown was making the rounds get print in the Herald harping on Warren’s heritage all over again. This time it was met with a loud thud, it fell flat, no on commented on it, no one picked it up, it was over.
Brown has now moved on to something else to avoid his record. This seems to be working for Mitt so Brown jumped on the bandwagon.
People have been beating me up about the gaffe but I’m sticking to my original post, Obama came off being against the people who make small businesses thrive instead of giving them kudos. He didn’t have to word it the way he did but he was trying to make the people who can’t “make it” feel better. Same with EW.
And before anyone repeats what they have said, we all know that business and individuals use roads, use electricity from wires built by other people a long time ago… and as I stated, when we accomplish something we don’t typically go back in time and thank the historical figures who won WWII since without them we might all be under German or Japanese Imperial rule. We all have roads, schools, police protection, plowed roads in the winter… so let’s stop trying to diminish the accomplishments of those who have succeeded.
Just so you know, Obama can make a mistake, right. Everyone does.
n/t
ok.
Nobody is “trying to diminish the accomplishments of those who have succeeded”.
We are, however, rejecting the essentially religious dogma from the right that says “God gives wealth and riches to those who work hard, and punishes the lazy. Therefore the wealthy and rich are doing God’s work, and the poor and destitute are being punished by God”. There is all too much self-congratulatory chest-thumping from some about how they “made their own way” — and therefore owe nothing to anybody in taxes, charity, or anything else.
I hear Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren reminding us that we live in a community. We are a society. We inherited a prosperous and wealthy nation from our ancestors, and we have an obligation to maintain and increase that prosperity and wealth for our progeny.
The self-centered greed that Mitt Romney Scott Brown epitomize and pander to is anathema to the community spirit that should join us together.
From Sen. Kyl calling vulture capitalists the “Michael Jordans” of the American economy (is the middle class even on his bench or are we all just ball boys?) to Romney saying corporations are people and reminding us how great individuals are to Ryan’s plans to wipe out the safety net I am reminded of Thatcher’s quote “there is no such thing as society” which seems to
be the Republican platform these days.
I agree there is too much self-congratulatory chest thumping but Obama and Warren are telling perfectly humble business owners that they didn’t build their business themselves, even if they really worked hard and took on risk and responsibility. The chest thumping happens on the left too, in academia and in the sciences, even with Warren herself thumping that she got her Harvard gig because she was “qualified” and not because the claimed to be a minority or was a woman. She drives to work on roads made possible by lots of hard work done by lots of privately owned companies, not to mention the cars and the service stations and restaurants she eats in.
I agree though about the Libertarian selfishness “made my own way” obnoxiousness though, but it’s wrong to blame business owners instead of the people who actually think like that, namely the libertarians who are often geeks working in high tech and biotech fields funded largely by the government.
Neither President Obama nor Elizabeth Warren “blamed” business owners. Instead, each reminded us that we live in a society. No “blame”.
The churlish defensiveness is an invention of Mitt Romney and his campaign.
They reminded business owners, instead of libertarians. It’s the Libertarians who need reminding and yelling at, not business owners or rich people.
forever the martyr