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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

EDITORIAL: Mind your own business, Obama - Washington Times

EDITORIAL: Mind your own business, Obama - Washington Times

President Obama thinks business owners don’t actually do anything. This is the most convincing proof yet that he has no concept of how the economy works.

At a rally in Roanoke, Va., last week, Mr. Obama was trying to justify new tax increases on upper-income Americans by saying that no one in this country makes it alone. “If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own,” he said. It is true that people’s lives are influenced by others — most importantly parents, then teachers, friends and professional colleagues. But in Mr. Obama’s mind, individuals owe a collective debt to people they have never met, those who built the political system, those who created the economy and — most fundamentally — to an all-wise, beneficent government.

“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” Mr. Obama continued. “Somebody else made that happen.” This claim would come as a surprise to the small-business owners who have invested their lives and life savings in making a go of it. It would be a shock to inventors and innovators who have been the drivers of America’s technological edge. It does make sense, however, coming from someone who has never had a job that didn’t depend on patronage and has spent his entire career getting ahead on identity and charisma instead of creativity and achievement.

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