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Obama was referring to ALL businesses, not just the GE's of the world.
That includes those small business owners, like Joe's Plumbing that mail bills to their customers.
The government gets plenty of money via taxes both from individuals and business.
The problem is that they are spending more than they are taking in and need more money.
This President doesn't seem to like capitalism. And just where would the masses be without their Dollar Stores or Joe's Plumbing or supermarket ?
ALL businesses in America have benefited from government built infrastructure in some way.
How many businesses have benefited from the USPS or internet? How many businesses have used our interstate highways? How would any business prosper without this government built infrastructure? Yet, businesses want to evade paying taxes!
The USPS does the same thing many private businesses do...provide a service for a fee. It's just that they do so more poorly and obligate the taxpayer to future pensions of their employees.
As to highways and the internet....private businesses either directly through the taxes they pay or indirectly through the taxes taken from the income their employees earned, paid for those things. Why should they not utilize what they paid for?
Sounds like Obama and his supporters want to replace God with the benevolence of the 'gooerment'. So get down on your knees and thank your government for your gift of life.
Infrastructure is a job of the government, an expectation, not a gift. We pay for it. The interstates are a result of defense startegy.
How many businesses have benefited from the USPS or internet? How many businesses have used our interstate highways? How would any business prosper without this government built infrastructure? Yet, businesses want to evade paying taxes!
ummm, excuse me, the thread was about this thought, formed in the president's mind and put into words by his mouth:
"If you’ve got a business - you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."
But you have given us a fine example of the rhetorical device perfected by Obama, the Straw Man. Thank you.
I can't believe the number of so-called capitalists here who are rejecting a seminal premise of capitalism.
Adam Smith:
""This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another . . .
Man sometimes uses the same arts with his brethren, and when he has no other means of engaging them to act according to his inclinations, endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their good will. He has not time, however, to do this upon every occasion. In civilised society he stands at all times in need of the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost every other race of animals each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old clothes which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other old clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food, clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion."
In civilised society he stands at all times in need of the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes
Um, I missed the word "government" in that sentence or its context. What I didn't miss is the obvious need for trading partners, capital formation such as equipment and labor, etc.
The last 50 years or so has made business more uncivilized because of government.
What are you implying..that they did not pay taxes both as a business and as an individual ?
...and now time for some circular logic among our ******* friends: "They (all businessowners) evaded their taxes, so no they didn't help out"
Obama's speech did nothing more than to demotivate business owners while motivating workers. It's all a part of that "leveling out the playing field" and "everyone gets a trophy" mentality.
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