“I Built This, Mr. President”

July 19, 2012 By 627 Comments

President Obama recently said, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Small business owners all over America took offense at this incorrect view that government (instead of elbow grease, intelligence, and good-old-fashioned risk taking) is the bedrock of our economy.

Since the President doesn’t understand how our economy works, let’s take a moment to explain how small businesses are created…  More importantly, let’s show him the businesses we’ve made and who has made them.  Please send me your photos — either e-mail me (via BristolsBlog @ gmail.com, without the space!) or tweet me at this blog’s brand new Twitter account (@BristolsBlog) using the hashtag #IBuiltThis.

Be creative! The photo can be of you working or of your small business.  Make it fun, by putting yourself in the photo holding up a sign that tells the President “I Built This!”

Don’t forget to tell me your name, location, and business website!!

Let’s give the President a little lesson on how this country works.  And let’s hurry, because he only has a few months left on the job!

And if there are small business owners in your family, tell us what your mom, dad, or grandparents have created.  I’ll go ahead and start.  My dad has one of the best spots to catch salmon in Bristol Bay. This tough, seasonal job put food on the table when I was a kid, and I’m thankful Dad built up his business through hard work and many cold nights.

There’s my photo –  send me yours!

Thank you for all the photos! See the “I Built This: The Video!”

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  • http://Facebook Valerie

    Thank you Bristol and Sarah, for being who you are…I for one am appalled every time I hear the bashing of the two of you as well as your whole family. Those who want to do that and attack your family have serious issues and they need to seek professional help for those issues…my opinion! I personally have family members who have built businesses from the ground up and I applaud those people who can do that. I have been trying to get my own business off the ground for a while, but unfortunately with little success. It doesn’t mean that I will quit or give up on my plan. I just need a different path to explore my options. I’m new at this so I’m sure that I have not been given sound advice when starting out. However I only heard clips of that speech that President Obama gave where he said that if you have a business you didn’t do it on your own you had help….well, frankly many of my family members who started their business didn’t have two dimes to rub together and they got NO help from anyone…they did it themselves. I have an Uncle now deceased that started a bait shop…from what I was told he would go and catch the bait himself keep it in buckets and sold them in different areas along the river in Kentucky. When guys would get there and either run out of bait or forgot to pick up any, they would go see my Uncle….that’s how he started his business, now his son owns that business and has maintained it, even though it was yanked out from under him not long after my Uncle passed away. My cousin vowed never to let the business die he scrimped and saved and built a new building and made it bigger than it was before. He has a booming business now, and is making a decent living. He had no help from anyone! Thanks Sarah and Bristol I enjoy reading about you and how things are going for you all, and I think you have a beautiful family, keep up the good work….sure would love to see you as President Sarah! :-)

  • http://www.joekiddone.blogspot.com/ JoeKidd

    President Obama crossed his Rubicon. He can’t turn back. And the president CAN’T take back what he said. Defeat is now on his horizon. Seriously. Everyone knows that the business of America IS business — not government. No president gets away with telling U.S. business owners “you didn’t build it”. His arrogance is just another millstone around his neck that will take him down. If you still support Obama, you’re not paying attention. You may as well just back up the USS Obama and hit that iceberg again.

    PS- President Obama must stop attacking American success. You know that the businesses featured in this video saved-or-created more jobs than any Obama program.

  • Ezekiel

    The President was talking about infrastructure, like highways, , electricity, etc.

    We all benefit from those things, that no one of us “built” on our own. Without that infrastructure, it’s very hard for businesses to get going. With it, they have a chance to use their own hard work to succeed.

    • Sharon

      Correct but who’s money built the roads and infrastructure??? Our tax dollars so we did build the roads that lead to our business that we built on our own not government; they didn’t spend their nights worry about expenses etc.

      • GrizzlyMom

        And who do we employ as government workers? Oh thats right US? We hire US! Americans…people we went to school with and live beside and shop at the grocery store with and go to concerts together.

        • http://lroberts48@yahoo.com kouis roberts

          Yea,, it goes back to “We The People” something Mr. Osama (oops, Obama) doesn`t Want to understand. We the people built this country and “They the scum of DC are tearing it down and giving it away.. I love my country but distrust that pkace called District of Columbia and most of its occupants. Most of them don`t have to work and never will.

        • Truth101

          And who pays for those government workers? Our tax dollars.

      • Mary Buttry

        I agree it is our hard earned tax dollars that put the people to work building that infrastructure!

    • Barb R

      What the president MEANT and what he SAID are two very different things.

      But on to your point. Is the president inferring that small business owners don’t pay taxes? They do, and plenty of them, therefore they DID build the infrastructure as well as building their own businesses.

      Of course I don’t expect anyone who hasn’t had to meet a payroll to understand.

    • Steven

      If government didn’t do it the businesses would have with their own money. Better cheaper and more efficiently. Government ALWAYS take its cut to pay for the wastefull overhead. Do you REALLY think that neighborhoods and businesses wouldn’t when profits await?

      I bet yuo want the government to wipe you when you’re done also.

      • Susan

        I agree. Here in NM a couple formerly government-operate entities such as DVM and waste-disposal are privatized and are today far more efficient and cost-effective; privatizing these two entities alone has reduced high taxation and created more private enterprise (ie jobs)

        Many of the ‘government services’ would be far more effective, productive and less-costly if they were taken out of the public sector hands and put into private sector hands.

        Plus, politicians would not be able to make all sorts of promises they cannot keep to government workers who unfortunately will have a very difficult financial future ahead; eventually the government sector will run out of other people’s money.

        In honesty it is cruel how the government deceives their public sector workers as well as recipients of govenment assistance. As we see in cities like Scranton PA, when the government runs out of tax dollars the workers as well as receipients of government assistance stop receiving their checks. And during such time there is no recourse nor alternative; all the money was wasted away supporting a bloated government bureaucracy.

        All government can create is bureaucracy, a massive bureaucracy which requires a great deal of finances to sustain its survival. And unfortunately all bureaucracy will feed itself first before any of the public sector workers are fed.

        If it takes $3 for the government bureaucracy to do what the private sector can do for $1 then eventually government bureaucracy must consume everything in order to stay alive.

        This is what public sector workers fail to understand, they work for a bureaucratic governmental system which is not benevolent, loving, kind or humane.

        Government bureaucracy does not care about the public sector worker, the bureaucracy only cares about sustaining itself. It is tragic for those who have come to rely upon government, this is the false hope in a dream which never enters reality.

        • emma Lora

          Great post!!

    • Brian Z

      The infrastructure was built by the taxes that are paid because businesses started up and created a product or service that people were willing to pay for. The government taxes the business and the employees that work for the businesses (the employees’ taxes wouldn’t exist without the business’s entreprenors taking risks and putting their life savings on the line). The government builds the infrastructure when the location of the business is established and the employees build their homes in the vicinity of their jobs. It is built to fill a need and paid for essentially because the business is successful.

    • Joyce

      Actually, BRIAN….govt didn’t build anything! Private businesses built the roads and bridges…with OUR money. Government had little to do with it, other than appropriating OUR money and awarding the contracts to business people who built construction businesses. THEY built the roads and bridges. And the only reason we needed these roads, was to connect private businesses to their consumers and to other businesses. Govt does not built anything but DEBT. Get a clue, will you?

    • 56Survivor

      Brian, get this straight. The “government” has no money of its own. It is ours, the taxpayers. Learn it, please.

    • Radegunda

      Why would Obama raise his voice and pound on a theme so obvious as the need for infrastructure (which no one denies)?
      That isn’t really his point. Listen to his sneering tone when he talks about people who “think they’re smart” or take pride in working hard to build their businesses. His point is to demean individual enterprise and initiative. He’s also implying that people with businesses don’t deserve what they earned, and that he will take more of it away and “spread it around” it to his cheering supporters who envy them. He’s arguing for a system where “somebody else” — specifically, a leviathan government — decides which businesses will succeed (or at least be temporarily propped up; see Solyndra et al.) and which will be crushed.

    • Larry W

      I heard the whole speach several times. The president was saying to the crowd those guys are no better or deserving than “you”. He was saying oh that “rich” business owner where does he get off saying he’s so smart. Without gov’t (he then lists several governmental services) he wouldn’t be so successful. The words and tone cannot be taken out of context…he meant what he said! And yes it’s an insult!

      Hate to break it to the career hamburger flipper (note at one time I was one)…but business people are extraordinary. They take risks, many fail, some have short successful runs, very very few last a long time. Obama would never understand what it’s like not to collect a paycheck, what it’s like to pay taxes quarterly. What this entitled welfare loving community organizer who I will have to call President of the United States for another few months doesn’t understand is that those roads DO NOT get built unless people like business owners exist. Being a recent member of the 1 percent, I am among the group that pays over 30% of the cost of that road (as far as federal money is concerned) while those in the bottom 50% pay virtually nothing. Yet I’m not paying m fair share!

      Being a business owner is generally a short-term highly demanding job There is no overtime when we work 75 hours a week, no taxpayer funded pensions, no mandatory breaks….a business owner’s lfe is his/her business. There is no real vacation.

      Small business is essential not just for the owners; but employees. Job growth comes from the entrepreneurship. When the economy is going right 50% are employed in this sector. Without robust small business gowth there are no jobs and tax revenues. If Obama wants to continue to burden this sector, job growth will be stale. The small business owner can elieviate risk by shrinking their business, and laying off people. Why expand when the president tells us he wants to raise your taxes by over 10%? Currently the federal government is marginally a 37.45% partner, Obama wants to increase that to 42 5%; and I Haven’t touched Obamacare.

      A word to the wise liberals….do not bite the hand that feeds you!

      President; they are doing just that! Come November the voters can either choose to Celebrate the successful business owner or resent. Obama is on the resentment side…let me assure you this is the man reason this recovery as so anemic!

  • Steven

    I do really want the the government to help, BY GETTING OUT OF MY WAY!!!

    • GrizzlyMom

      Great Steven. And if your business catches on fire I hope you can put it out with your OWN water supply and team of fire fighters. And don’t get mad because remember “you want the government to get out of your way”.

      • K.M.

        You’re attacking an argument that you just made up. No one ever said that we want no government, just limited government. Besides, ever hear of a volunteer fire department?

  • John

    Yes, government secured the loans (bonds) for public works projects, but like all loans they have to be paid back with interest (higher future taxes.) Many of those public works projects are unnecessary and really should be paid by for the individual states. The federal government only recently started indirectly subsidizing states for: fire departments, roadways, police, education, etc. First, they take money collected from successful states and borrowed from China, then skim a third of that money to pay for its bloated bureaucracy and employees, then send what’s left to the states that have mismanaged their finances, then they collect more money from taxes to pay for the borrowed money (plus interest) that paid for last year’s projects. Individual federal departmental future budgets are increased by overspending in the present – a clear disincentive to save money. This is why a real businessman is desperately needed in the White House, not someone who doesn’t have a basic understanding of how the economy actually works. Yes, we all benefit from infrastructure, education, etc. – but those have already been (or will be) overpaid for by the 53% of Americans who are the taxpayers.

  • Griffin

    What a beautiful video! Thank you for BUILDING it!

  • Pingback: Did I Take the President’s Words Out of Context?

  • Steven L

    Anyone who started a business truly BUILT that business. Without their idea of starting it, it wouldn’t be.

  • Dennis

    I love how all of the liberals providing excuses for this president and pretend to tell us what we heard him say live. The obvious flaw in the presidents marxist statement is this, does anyone doubt that the roads, bridges, teacher and what not would not exist if the entrepeuears had not decided to gamble on starting a business. Hell where I grew up if a road was need to build the entreprenuer would just build the damn road his/her self!

  • Joyce

    Well done, Bristol!

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