Obama: If You Got a Business… You Didn’t Build That!

The now infamous expression “You didn’t build that” is a phrase that was taken from an election campaign speech delivered by  Barack Obama on July 13, 2012, in Roanoke, Virginia. The phrase was publicized by his political opponents and branded as a sign of his communistic inclinaisons, and it has often been described and published on the Internet as a meme. [1] [2] [3] The president’s remark was made in the context of his belief that wealthy citizens should pay higher taxes to serve the public good but it was also widely recognized as one of his numerous socialist verbal blunders. [4]  In fact, most people, especially now that his marxist agenda has been fully blown out in the open, are of the opinion that it reflect perfectly how the first african american President really think.

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… 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. [5]

In August 2011, while contemplating a run for the U.S. Senate, former White House financial reform adviser Elizabeth Warren gave a fiery defense of progressive economic theory at an event in Andover, Massachusetts. [6] On September 21, a video of Warren making the case for progressive economics received attention on the Internet and became a viral video. [7] In the video, Warren aggressively rebuts the argument that asking the rich to pay more taxes is “class warfare,” [8] by pointing out that no one grew rich in America without depending on government services paid for by the rest of society. [9] Warren said:

I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along. [10]

Obama later echoed Warren’s thoughts when he spoke in Roanoke, Virginia about how private businesses rely on government investments in infrastructure. [11][12] In her victory speech on November 6, 2012, Elizabeth Warren made a callback, stating it had been “an amazing campaign, and let me be clear, I didn’t build that, you built that.” [13]

Obama went on to say that rich people did not get rich solely due to their own talent and hard work, but that, to varying degrees, they owe some of their success to good fortune and the contributions of government. [15] Obama said in this context:

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.

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. [16]

The President communistic comment draw some fire from the republicans and the right wing medias.  Rush Limbauch said that it was “the most telling moment of Obama’s presidency.  Here is what the radio host had to say about it:

This roads-and-bridges stuff is just liberal claptrap. What he’s doing, what he’s setting the stage for is trying to socialize profit so that he can claim it. What he wants people to conclude is that profit was not possible, is not possible, without government first making it possible. And, therefore, government owns it. It’s government’s profit. He wants to socialize the profit, and that’s then the vehicle for going after everybody’s money via higher taxes, a wealth tax, or whatever technique that he tries. [17]