What if the Government built a road and then no one built a business on it? Would that be a road to nowhere? Would we end up with a government homeless shelter on the road?
From what business would the taxes come to pay for the homeless shelter?
Is it fair to say that Government never succeeds without private enterprise of some sort? Did the Soviet Union not have a Black Market and does not the DPRK have one today?
Regards — Cliff
15 comments:
If government largesse were to come out of the blue as it were, that would be one thing. But, not for nothing, but government itself runs on the taxes paid by those who--who knew!--grow things like crops and businesses in the first place.
Barry is, in my eyes, making a mistake by having picked his fight so far to the possibly right side of this particular argument that he's gone all the way into wrong territory. Yes, businesses owe credit back to the environments in which they thrive, but they also MUST receive credit for their contributions to the formation of that environment just the same as everyone else.
Pretending that there is only credit due to the government for all wealth is the height of Soviet "central planning" doublespeak, and it's surely the road to catastrophe.
"Pretending that there is only credit due to the government for all wealth"
Could someone provide fully vetted, substantiated evidence where Barry has made clear this is a firm belief?
Sorry, but the distillation of Neal's life experience won't suffice.
The point to be made is - we're all in this together.
To further separate us is not in our overall best interests, and taking a quote without full context does just that.
I believe I did NOT take the President's comment out of context. Someone else tried to tie that on me today, but I flat out rejected it. it is pretty clear he said what he said. And I have previously linked to the larger context.
Now, I am fully prepared to accept that he misspoke in the heat of the moment, while trying to make a point, the point Joe himself makes above. But, if that is the case, the President himself, his Press Secretary or DWS should walk back the comment.
And to Joe's other point, yes, we are all in this together. No man is an island. But, it is the People, banding together for the common good who make government and thus common infrastructure.
QUOTE
The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals; it is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen and each citizen with the whole people that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good. It is the duty of the people, therefore, in framing a constitution of government, to provide for an equitable mode of making laws, as well as for an impartial interpretation and a faithful execution of them; that every man may, at all times, find his security in them.
UNQUOTE
We are all in this together.
As for Neal, he IS a data point!
Regards — Cliff
The quote is here:
http://p.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/jul/15/picketvideo-obama-if-youve-got-business-you-didnt-/
Like Cliff said, if it wasn't what Barry meant, it's reasonable to expect him or one of his mouthpieces to correct it. Laying the burden of proving intent behind someone's words on others is never going to work. The understanding of the audience is the responsibility of the writer or the orator.
Or, Jack, would you like to explain what he really meant to say?
My point is that even those who might agree with some degree of such sentiment cannot possibly agree with this ridiculous statement that has stood in the public discourse for some time now. Barry plays politics so as to never retreat. Well, this is the consequence. These words are flat out offensive and wrong. He chooses to stand by them by not retracting them so here we are.
You're just frustrated because they are indefensible.
Here it is for the lazy:
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.
Ya. indefensible. Explaining the lottery of birth is indefensible.
Rmoney's hubris is offensive.
Rmoney and his followers are giving us the ol' "I walked to school, barefoot in the snow, uphill, both ways" routine. It's BS.
Did Obama overstate his point? Yes. Will Rmoney try to use this to dodge releasing his tax returns?
100 times, YES!
That, Jack, is my point. There is a highly defensible position somewhere to take, but Barry went past it to a place that is far less so. This isn't talking about Mittington, so you and he do not enjoy the privilege of trying to change the subject in that direction. Telling a business owner that "you didn't build it" is the issue. We, I thought, live in a free country where we the people are the architects and builders of our lives and our livelihoods. Barry wants to tell me my grandfather didn't have any hand in building the means of business that put my mother through college? That's bullshit.
What Obama stated, is an argument for spontaneous generation, though bent towards economy.
Whatever your grandfather accomplished, the intangibles were manifested by him. The chunky stuff he sifted through and glommed together, were placed at his disposal by those before him.
Those before him were both private and public entities.
If you wish to argue for "big bang" entrepeneurism, please do go on.
The full quote as you insist in ignoring above ends with reference to the government's hand in building the internet, offered as an example for what is meant by the preceding statement. The implication I infer from that choice is that Barry is preferring to say that the government is the entity by which "spontaneous generation" is then allowed to occur, and business owners owe to Caesar as the saying goes.
My objection to this is that the government has nothing until it is taxed from citizens and their businesses, and those self same citizens and business owners (and the upper income demographic is indeed paying the lion's share of the income taxes) cannot be both extorted for money, and then told that they wouldn't have any of it if it wasn't for the government which is taking a significant portion of it.
Look, I'm willing to agree with some small portion of the point. Roads and bridges and all such convenience benefit the wealthy more than most, and to a degree that either is, or is not, proportional to their contribution to paying for it. If you analyze tax receipts, I would suggest you may indeed find they are not getting the sort of free ride Barry is attempting to imply they are. They're PAYING for their ride, same as the rest of us. (Well, at least the rest of us who pay taxes).
If you want to discuss level playing fields and such, that is a tangent to this discussion. I would not discourage you or Barry from bringing it up. But, face value, Barry's words are far beyond what I am willing to support. As an independent voter who is likely to be counted upon to provide the difference in this election, that is a campaign gaffe. Period.
Clearly certain segments of the economy are underpinned directly from government spending. We would not have a military-industrial complex, or as Cliff likes to point out, public colleges and universities, if it wasn't so.
That gov't spending fertilizes creation is apparent by the creation of the "internet" via the funding of ARPANET. R&D funding in countless enterprises have greased the skids for private sector profits.
These profits tend to swell in the ranks of America's "most taxable" citizens. That Rmoney would deny the US gov't from recouping their seed money is folly.
To deny the linkage between private and public is assinine.
Barry did not make the claim that is being promoted. To say that he has is to take the statement out of context. Those that do wish to further their own misconception of how progressives view the private sector.
We can listen to Rmoney and his supporters pant about the autonomy of the private sector. They are kidding themselves.
Public and private are joined at the hip like the proverbial siamese twins.
Where would Lowell be without federal subsidies? Hamilton Canal Project?
The obviousness of the truth is sun bright.
Jcak
I don't think everyone sees the lack of a partnership. I think that some have a chicken and egg issue. It is sort of like the difference, at least in my mind, between the Fench and American Revolutions. For the French it was all about the State and for us it was all about the People (and property). It is the same stick we are all talking about, but it seems Prof Warren and President Obama have it by the wrong end.
As for what the President said, he said it. The context was flowing in a certain direction and then there was this stutter-step and the flow resumed, as Kad, who hates both Parties equally, has noted.
Regards — Cliff
For Jcak. The video.
Regards — Cliff
Cliff,
There is no wrong end of the stick. Should one end become to large, the stick becomes a club.
Rmoney. It's a fake, but still funny.
Even if 'we're all in this together', our economic system relies on individual specialization/niches. We can plan for the future, but we can't plan the future itself. We need that fluidity for anything of a possible future to happen.
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