The Business Journals...
4 reasons why “you didn’t build that” still haunts Obama
by Kent Hoover, Washington Bureau Chief
Friday, July 20, 2012 

It’s been a week since President Barack Obama made a remark that’s been haunting him ever since: “If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” 

Many business owners felt insulted by this remark, despite attempts to explain the context. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney spent the week hammering Obama over this statement. He drove the point home Thursday during a visit to Middlesex Truck & Coach in Roxbury, Mass. Obama’s remark shows the president believes “that people who build enterprises like this really aren’t responsible for it,” Romney said. 

“Come here and talk to Brian [the owner of the trucking company], and you’ll learn that in fact he did build this business,” Romney said. “Someone else isn’t responsible for what he did here. He’s the one that took the risk. He’s the one that built this enterprise.” 

The Romney campaign also released a 30-second television ad today featuring another business owner who was offended by the remark. The Obama campaign responded with their own video, accusing the Romney campaign of distorting Obama’s remarks through selective editing. 

The remark also remains a hot topic for Beltway pundits -- today’s Washington Post included two columns about the “you didn’t build that” line, one by liberal Ezra Klein and one by conservative Charles Krauthammer. 

So why hasn’t Obama been able to put this controversy behind him? 

Here are four reasons: 

The context of the remark cuts both ways 

The “you didn’t build that” line came in the middle of a riff by Obama about how successful people didn’t get there on their own -- they had help. In the sentence just before this line, Obama said, “Somebody invested in roads and bridges.” So when the president, said “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” he probably was referring to roads and bridges, not your business. 

At least that’s how I interpreted it, after rereading his speech and watching the video. Plenty of readers think otherwise, however. 

After all, what sure sounded like an insult to business owners fit the president’s overall theme -- successful people got help from others, including the government, and therefore should be willing to pay more in taxes.

Romney said Obama’s “you didn’t build that” line “wasn’t a gaffe. It was, instead, his ideology. The president does in fact believe that people who build enterprises like this really aren’t responsible for it, but in fact a collective success of the whole society that somehow builds enterprises like this.” 

The remark reinforced the impression that Obama doesn’t get small business 

The president never ran a business -- he never even worked for one, unless you count his brief stint at a law firm. Obama was a community organizer, a constitutional law professor and a legislator before becoming president. Unlike Romney, he doesn’t speak the language of business -- and when he tries, it often comes out wrong. 

Six weeks ago, he said, “The private sector is doing fine.” He was roundly blasted for being out of touch with economic reality. 

In 2009, during the debate over health care reform, Obama said rising health insurance premiums were forcing some small businesses to shut their doors. That didn’t make sense -- small businesses wouldn’t close if they couldn’t afford health insurance, they’d just drop the coverage. There was no employer mandate at the time -- maybe Obama was projecting ahead. 

There are plenty of other little examples of odd things Obama has said about small business -- at a campaign stop yesterday he talked about traveling the country and meeting “a small business owner who sacrificed some of their own perks and maybe their own pay” to avoid laying off workers. 

Perks? Small business owners? 

The remark gave Romney the opportunity to go on offense 

Until Obama made his “you didn’t build that” remark, the president’s campaign had put Romney on the defensive about Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded and ran. There has been a tidal wave of stories about businesses that were shut down after Bain acquired them and investments by Bain in businesses that outsourced jobs to other countries. 

Obama’s remark gave Romney a chance to counterattack Obama, instead of just play defense. And he’s making the most of it, as mentioned earlier. 

Which leads to the fourth reason why the “You didn’t make that” controversy is still with us: 

It makes a great T-shirt 

For $20, you can buy the following red T-shirt from Romney’s campaign: 

“I built my business, Mr. President.” 

Read this and other articles at The Business Journals