You know, thank you, you know something happened, something happened on Friday. President Obama exposed what he really thinks about free people and the American vision, and government, what he really thinks about America itself. He probably wants to understand why hispolicies failed. If you want to understand why his policies have failed, why what he has done has not created jobs, or rising incomes in America, you can look at what he said. And what he said was this, I quote, and he was speaking about businesses like this one, small businesses, big businesses, mid-sized businesses, mining businesses, manufacturing service businesses of all kinds. He said this: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that, somebody else made that happen.” That somebody else is government in his view. He goes on to describe the people who deserve the credit for building this business. And, of course, he describes people who we care very deeply about, who make a difference in our lives, our schoolteachers, fire fighters, people who build roads. We need those things, we value schoolteachers, fire fighters, people who build roads, you really couldn’t have a business if you didn’t have those things. But, you know, we pay for those things. The taxpayers pay for government. It’s not like government just provides those to all of us and we say oh thank you government for doing those things. In fact we pay for them and we benefit from them and we appreciate the work that they do and the sacrifices that are done by people who work in government. But they did not build this business.
The idea to say that Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple, that Henry Ford didn’t build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn’t build Papa John Pizza, that Ray Kroc didn’t build McDonald’s, that Bill Gates didn’t build Microsoft, you go on the list, that Joe and his colleagues didn’t build this enterprise, to say something like that is not just foolishness, it is insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America and it’s wrong. [Applause] And by the way, the President’s logic doesn’t just extend to the entrepreneurs that start a barber shop or a taxi operation or an oil field service business like this and a gas service business like this, it also extends to everybody in America that wants to lift themself up a little further, that goes back to school to get a degree and see if they can get a little better job, to somebody who wants to get some new skills and get a little higher income, to somebody who have, may have dropped out that decides to get back in school and go for it. People who reach to try and lift themself up. The President would say, well you didn’t do that. You couldn’t have gotten to school without the roads that government built for you. You couldn’t have gone to school without teachers. So you didn’t, you are not responsible for that success. President Obama attacks success and therefore under President Obama we have less success and I will change that. [Applause]I’ve got to be honest, I don’t think anyone could have said what he said who had actually started a business or been in a business. And my own view is that what the President said was both startling and revealing. I find it extraordinary that a philosophy of that nature would be spoken by a President of the United States. It goes to something that I have spoken about from the beginning of the campaign. That this election is, to a great degree, about the soul ofAmerica. Do we believe in an America that is great because of government or do we believe in an America that is great because of free people allowed to pursue their dreams and build our future?
