From: Talking Points Memo.
Romney conveniently ignored
the sentences immediately before and after Obama’s quote, which made clear the
president’s line referred to building public infrastructure like roads, bridges
and the Internet that businesses utilize to their benefit. But Romney didn’t
stop there: As he tried to twist the knife on Obama, he essentially made the
president’s argument for him.
After exhorting business owners to stand up and
be recognized, Romney said:
I know that you
recognize a lot of people help you in a business. Perhaps the banks, the
investors. There’s no question your mom and dad, your school teachers, the
people that provide roads, the fire, the police. A lot of people help. But let
me ask you this, did you build your business? If you did, raise your hand. Take
that, Mr. President.
Here’s how Obama
described the relationship between “the people that provide roads, the fire,
the police” and business owners in that speech Romney cited:
Somebody invested in
roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody
else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government
research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off
the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we
succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things
together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on
our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be
a hard way to organize fighting fires.
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