Recently Mitt Romney became the aggressor and attacked Obama for undermining entrepreneurship in America. Obama made a comment basically saying individual businesses would not be where they are today without the help of the government and its investments. Romney used this statement to highlight the differences between Obama's views on the economy and his own.
Romney seemed appalled during his speech that Obama would take away the individual efforts from entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Romney felt Obama is trying to change the culture of business and that his comments were insulting to those that worked hard for their establishments. Obama's actual words were,"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." This is the video. It can clearly be seen that Obama feels powerhouse businesses need to pay its dues to the nation.
I understand where Obama is coming from when he makes his statement, without general advancement in society businesses would not have the success it does now. The government is responsible for a lot of these advancements such as roads and the internet. Many of these business are investing money out of the country, but if it were invested here in America it would create more jobs for our economy.
Obama seems to be taking away the individual drive and courage it takes to start a business. Obama wants to make the point that business depended on government, but in life everything depends on something else at one point of time or another. I can see why Romney wants to attack Obama for this comment. America is a country built on capitalism and that allows the individual to make something out of nothing. Romney is also taking the attention off the fact he hasn't released more of his tax returns with this attack. I feel that both Obama and Romney need to recognize that both individual efforts and the infrastructure as a whole should work coherently to produce the best results.
Which “individual businesses” is Obama referring to that “would not be where they are today without the help of the government and its investments”? (I’m not sure the Internet is an individual business). This kind of a generic statement for the President to make without backing up is idea(s) with evidence. I agree that our government has played a role in helping certain businesses and/or business fields prosper, but from a third party point of view I’d have to say that private businesses in this country seems to do better when the government does not get involved. As you put it Nick, “America is a country built on capitalism and that allows the individual to make something out of nothing.” Some of Obama’s ideas come off as rather socialistic rather than capitalistic.
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