FreedomWorks Foundation Content

According to Obama, the Government Built Your Business

Barack Obama has yet again taken credit away from individual success and attributed it to the government, sending small business owners one simple message: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” If this doesn’t further prove that Obama is unfit to lead a country based on the splendor of a free market system, then I’m at a loss as to what will.

This latest stab at small businesses occurred at a campaign rally in Roanoke, Virginia, in which the president continuously insinuated that small business owners owe their success to the government due to government funded infrastructure and projects. He told supporters, “Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own…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.”

Ignoring the falsity of these comments, this is a slap in the face to hardworking business owners and entrepreneurs. Obama continuously states that he is a supporter of small business yet he insults them by taking all credit away from the owners and giving it to the government. It’s a simple fact: small businesses thrive because of private equity, not because of government involvement. Yet Obama fails to recognize this and continues to push his big-government policies down the throats of the very people that create jobs and fuel our economy.

He’s done this most recently in his stance on the extension of the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of this year. He has promised to increase taxes on those individuals making over $200,000 a year which, according to the Heritage Foundation, would hit 1.2 million small businesses that pay their taxes through the income tax code. These 1.2 million small businesses earn 91 percent of flow-through business entities revenue, meaning they are the ones making all of the money and thus the ones creating all the jobs. This tax hike would not only hurt business owners but would effectively destroy jobs and increase prices for consumers.

Obama must stop his attack on small businesses through big government policies and bipartisan lies. We should not be thanking the government for the creation of successful businesses but rather the free market system and the hardworking people that fuel it. In our day, production and prosperity are possible in spite of government intervention, not because of it. These outlandish claims must be stopped, tell him so now by signing our petition.