Remember the words “you didn’t built that- someone else did!”?
That seminal moment in the 2012 Presidential race may seem like years ago, as this political season has really ramped up and thousands of commercials, emails and mail pieces have inundated your TVs and mailboxes since President Obama stood on the stage in Virginia that summer day and stumped: “If you have a business, you didn’t build that. Someone else built that.”
The President’s aides and liberal pundits quickly stammered into damage control mode, claiming that the President’s words had been taken out of context and what he really meant was that all businesses are successful because of collective things provided by the government such as public roads and the internet.
In today’s 24 hour partisan media market, it seems at times the pundits are watching every candidate’s moves, waiting with bated breath for someone to slip up, say something wrong or veer of message, and when one does, it is as if Christmas came early. Any opportunity to take a statement and spin it, exploit it or take out it of context can produce days of political fodder, millions of dollars worth of TV and web ads, and an onslaught of internet memes and viral messaging.
But what President Obama said that day in Virginia was not a slip up, it was not a mistake. It was the President, perhaps in a rare unpolished moment, speaking to his true political philosophy: that government is the answer, government is the job creator and government should be the center of the American economy.
The President’s “you didn’t built that” speech was the President was stumping for his party’s view on what the role of government really means, and what he believes it should be going forward. In suggesting that successful businesses are successful because of government involvement, the President blindly ignores the hard work and pioneer spirit of the American people that always been the lifeblood of our country’s growth.
Government doesn’t build businesses, our people do. It is the blood, sweat and tears of our country’s entrepreneurs that have consistently made America the epicenter of ingenuity and the leader of innovation. It is the people who take an idea and work tirelessly to turn that idea into a reality; it is the people who pick up a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other; it is the people who get up at dawn and put in as many hours as it takes. That is what builds our businesses, and that is what will recover our economy.
While, government doesn’t build businesses, it sure can kill them. Nowhere is this clearer than with the administration’s current policies on regulation. Small businesses are caught in a historical riptide of red tape, and the avalanche of rules and regulations coming down from Washington are making it nearly impossible to start or stay in business, let alone grow, succeed, and create jobs.
Washington red tape has become so overwhelming and frustrating that one small business owner in my district told me that he actually feels like the government wants him to fail.
Keeping up with cumbersome paperwork and compliance requirements costs business owners time and money, and that means less capital for hiring new employees. While the American people are at home worrying whether or not they will be able to make it to the end of the month with any money in the bank, or whether or not they will be able to keep their job, we are actually making it harder for our nation’s small businessmen and women, the very people we are counting on to sustain our local economies and create jobs.
We need to cut the red tape to create an environment of certainty to promote innovation and unleash economic growth. We need to restore the freedom and certainty job creators need to do their job. We need to lower taxes.
That is why Republicans have fought to change the current economic policies of over-regulation. We have voted to put a freeze on any new government regulations until unemployment drops to 6 percent or lower. We have also passed over 30 pro-growth, pro-jobs bills that will help create jobs and get America working again. If we want America to remain a nation of prosperity, we have got to come together and get serious about solving our jobs crisis. Getting Washington out of the way of small businesses is a crucial step in this recovery.
American businesses can’t survive, let alone thrive, until we get Washington’s heavy boot off of their throats. While the President may not believe that our businessmen and women built their own businesses, he must surely notice that after 43 straight months of record unemployment, the current policies just aren’t working.
On Election Day, we don’t just have a choice between two candidates, we have a choice between two Americas. A lot has happened since that “you didn’t built that” stump speech, but it is important to remember those words on Nov. 6th.