President Barack Obama has some news for entrepreneurs: “If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
That’s what the president said Friday during a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va. His point was that if you’re successful, “you didn’t get there on your own ... somebody along the line gave you some help.” And that somebody includes the government: public investments in roads, bridges, schools, the Internet, etc. -- “this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive,” Obama said.
But the “you didn’t build that” line raised a few eyebrows in the business community.
Dan Danner, president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business , said Obama showed "an utter lack of understanding and appreciation for the people who take a huge personal risk and work endless hours to start a business and create jobs."
“Every small business is not indebted to the government or some other benefactor," Danner said. "If anything, small businesses are historically an economic and job-creating powerhouse in spite of the government.”
Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said Obama's remarks were "insulting to the hard-working entrepreneurs, small-business owners, and job creators who are the backbone of our economy."
Amy Payne, a blogger for the Heritage Foundation, said this “slap in the face to hard-working Americans conveyed Obama’s belief that it takes a village -- a heavily subsidized village -- to create that venture you’re profiting from.”
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