It only “dilutes private initiative” if you believe that private initiative requires little or nothing else to succeed.
In fact, what it does is call attention to the attitude that many on the right have that they “did it all by themselves” when in fact, they neither did nor could.
As I’ve said before, if you think that all it takes is initiative and the will to succeed, feel free to move to Somalia and start a business and prove me (and the President) wrong.
Marginally? Really? Here’s the quote: Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. 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. The Republicans spliced the bolded parts together and left out the middle. That’s dishonest: they are attacking something Obama clearly never said.
Wonderful. Bricker attacks what Obama said. Now I don’t buy Bricker’s argument and we could go back and forth on it. But the point here is that the Republicans are working on a wholly different line of attack.
Obama never ever said there are no people of accomplishment, he never said that nobody built their own business. He simply said that there are many who stand behind every accomplishment. This theme is an old one: it can be traced to the scientist who noted that he stood on the shoulders of giants. Before that, we can invoke Edmund Burke whose cautious social policies were grounded partly on his reverence for tradition and his ancestors.*
Personally I find it obvious that economic growth is a team effort and uncontroversial that reasonable incentives promote excellence. But again, so does basically the entire Democratic legislature.
The “I like to fire people” was part of Republican intramurals. GOP Candidates Defend Romney's 'I Like Being Able to Fire People' Remark - ABC News Rick Perry turned it into a ringtone. Jon Huntsman invoked the word “unelectable.”
Bottom line: the Republicans have lost the ability to win any arguments. The leaders no this. So they make shit up: they invent things that the Democrats allegedly have said and attack those. Examples include Death Panels that were never part of health care reform, false accusations that the Dems don’t believe in entrepreneurial accomplishment (tell it to Soros, Rubin et al), weird characterizations of Obama’s apology tour, etc. Luckily for them none of this embarrasses their base.
I’m blowing smoke here: frankly, I wasn’t able to locate the cite. Ah well.
I think the word we’re looking for here to describe Romney is “sanctimonious.” I could probably cut him some slack in quoting Obama outrageously out of context, offering faux-outrage at things he knows Obama never said and certainly never meant, crying alarm at potential abuses of Obama’s policies that on their face are perfectly safe, because this is after all an American election, but the part I find unforgivable is that he’s doing all this while calling for an issues-oriented discussion. You want to play dirty, then take your white lace gloves off. If you want to play clean, then at least have the decency to pretend to be doing so yourself.
If Obama had said, “You didn’t do that on your own – you needed the Sun, which gives energy to the entire planet,” we wouldn’t be having this debate, because while the Sun’s contribution is just as inarguable, just as true… it would also be pretty clear Obama wasn’t suggesting subsidizing celestial bodies with public policy concessions.
But if a theme in American politics were how much bounty to set aside for Ra in our annual Sun-God sacrifices, and Obama mentioned how helpful the Sun was in a speech, we would – quite properly – react differently.
I don’t agree it’s a wholly different line of attack.
For illustration, let’s consider the ad in which Ryan is shown pushing a wheelchair-bound senior citizen over a cliff. That’s obviously literally untrue – no one (I hope) contends that Ryan’s Medicare reforms include provisions to murder the elderly by rolling them off cliffs. But the ad is not “wholly different” – it highlights symbolically the claim that Ryan’s restructuring of Medicare to use vouchers amounts to a destruction of the program and is symbolized by tossing Grandma over a cliff.
Here, I think Obama’s – and the Democrats as a whole – have clearly advanced the line of thinking that there is value in the model that achievements are a matter of group effort. This is a trivial truth, but by emphasizing it, they send the signal that they intend to treat it as more than simply trivially true. They intend to form public policy around it – to justify requirements that the successful “give back” in some way. And this is alluded to, in advertising shorthand, by “You didn’t build that,” because that phrase goes to the heart of the matter – for the purposes of crafting public policy, whose achievements matter when considering a successful business – the entrepreneur or the ditch diggers that made sure there was a culvert by the side of the road so the loading dock of the entrepreneur’s shipping facility was accessible? Both are necessary – no argument. But why are we talking about it, if not to suggest that the ditches have some significance beyond the obvious necessity?
You’re framing it in terms of taxes. But read the speech. It’s as much about investment in infrastructure, which is absolutely a live issue in the election. It makes perfect sense to defend the value of government investment in this election.
ETA: To put it another way, imagine the GOP was planning to destroy the sun. Then you would understand why your hypothetical speech would make sense.
I find engaging a third party useful, Hentor, because these attacks carry weight only because of the large, eager, echo chamber that exists here. It’s of only slight value for me to confront you directly, because my attack on you may be dismissed by readers as politically motivated. “Of course, Bricker’s a conservative; he WOULD say that.”
By asking a reasonable person also on the left to characterize the attack as unfair, it removes the spectre of partisan politics as a motivating factor. *Richard Parker is no conservative, yet he agrees the jape was unfair. This suggests it was objectively unfair, and not merely a disagreement existing because of partisan polarity.
Even if the speech were “as much” about infrastructure as about taxes, Obama’s comments did not arise because of GOP reluctance to subsidize infrastructure. They arose because of the tax debate. He was responding to the “don’t raise taxes on the wealthy” argument, not some refusal of the GOP to fund the repair of bridges.
The Romney/Ryan budget would gut investment in basic research, in transportation infrastructure, in education, and in other categories explicitly mentioned by Obama.
Richard: I know that has become a Democratic talking point, but there is no such thing as “the Romney/Ryan budget”. I thought that was the kind of thing we were trying to avoid.
With all due respect for the President, I am unwilling to accept as definitive his analysis of what would need to be cut if a Romney/Ryan budget were imposed, both as to raw dollars and the decisions on how to spend those dollars.
I do not believe that he is inclined to analyze the effects of his opponents’ budget plans dispassionately.
First of all, it is based on non-partisan analysis.
But second, so what? Your claim is that he was arguing for higher taxes. The context makes clear that he was saying that further cutting taxes would necessarily gut investment, which is important.
But it does indicate that Obama’s awareness was largely focused on the taxation issue – he even mentions raising taxes on the middle class in the section you quote.
I’m sorry, but Obama’s comments arose in an effort to justify his efforts to raise taxes on the “1%” that are the top of the earners who actually create wealth.