Romney spoke at a factory today and mocked the idea that "no one makes it without help".

[JohnnyRingo]

As he went on and on about how entrepreneurs don't look to the government for help in starting their businesses, I was wondering if that company's local tax abatement expired yet.

It's possible that the suburb where the machine repair business took up roots didn't offer five to ten years of tax free status as incentive to locate there, but I can't think of anywhere near my home that doesn't. That's not just the govt helping, it's the entire community pitching in to attract business.

Indeed, we had a company move here that distributed trophies and other personalized gifts. They only employed about 20 workers, and the shop mostly consisted of racks and a shipping department. After the five year abatement ended they unbolted everything and moved to another nearby town that offered the same incentive.

I'm not sure how it can be researched, but I'd bet $10 the company Romney gave his "we don't need nobody" speech at this afternoon was getting help from the local community as he stood there.

On edit: I wish the people with the capacity to look into this ungrateful hypocrisy would find out.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Guess he never heard of the Small Business Administration.

http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/05/are-sba-loans-really-growing-like-gangbusters.html

[HiPointDem]

2. kr. & that should be a dem talking point. instead it's left to posters on chat boards to make the

case.

[C_U_L8R]

3. What is Rmoney's malfunction ???

He seems obsessed with spinning untruths and lies.
He's got this transparent schtick of editing what people
say to serve his own mudslinging. What a creep.

[KurtNYC]

4. Romney mentioned Henry Ford as an example of a business that didn't need roads built for it!

Henry Ford according to Romney is a small business man who got no help from the government during the transition from horses to cars and the millions of miles of roadway built at taxpayer expense.

America works best when we work together.

[johnwb]

5. Which comes first

What comes first the business making a sale or the tax collected on that sale?

[JohnnyRingo]

6. The answer is obvious, your point is not.

I was pointing out that few businesses get their start without the largess of the local community. While newly located companies enjoy temporary tax free status that must be made up by local citizens, the streets still need repaired, the schools still need funded, and someone has to pay to keep the fire dept open.

It's clear that Romney is wrong when he promotes the notion that businesses make it only on the guile and finesse of the entrepeneur. Obama was right when he said that no one makes it on their own in America, and that includes Steve Jobs, who would have sold few iMacs without the internet developed by the government.

Needless to say, I wasn't talking about federal tax obligations.

[jmowreader]

13. Steve Jobs got government help long before the iMac

Apple II computers were very popular in public schools and were used by the military.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

7. Or, perhaps a business formed by initial government-private collaboration

and then taxes collected from the sales and services of the business. These revenues are returned to the community to build the infrastructure (roads, sewage, fire, police) to make it possible for businesses to operate. The taxes are also used to replace tax breaks businesses are given during their formative years.

It's not a chicken-or-egg thing. Life is a lot more complicated than conservatives would have us think.

BTW, there is no "government" and "us." The Constitution begins, "We the People..." It serves the GOP to divide and conquer, however, so public employees are the next on their enemies list.

It's also not a zero-sum game, which holds that for a business to grow everyone else must lose, and vice versa.

Finally, government is not a business, and anyone who tells you their MBA alone qualifies them to be president is full of shit. Business is about making a profit. Period. Government is about serving the needs of a diverse variety of people. You can't be a sociopath like Bush or Romney and be a good president. You can't refer to your fellow citizens as "you people."

[bongbong]

8. Silly!

What comes first is the person who had the money to spend.

Those (jobs) don't exist in an America controlled by repigs, unless you count the workers at the factories in China & India that the repigs outsourced.

[HopeHoops]

9. Went over like a lead balloon.

[LiberalFighter]

10. Someone from the local Democratic Party or activist

needs to gather the data on the abatements or subsidies and write a letter to the editor.

[cleduc]

11. Romney Took Advantage of Government Subsidies at Bain

http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/15/mitt-romney-took-advantage-of-government-subsidies-at-bain/

That help make your point?

[Amonester]

12. Guess what? You (would have) won your bet.

July 19, 2012 7:20 PM
Romney's Obama attack gets sidetracked
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57476287-503544/romneys-obama-attack-gets-sidetracked/

[yellowcanine]

14. How about the workers at a factory? They certainly contribute to the success of the business.

I don't think this is going to be a winning meme talking to factory workers.

[magical thyme]

17. +1,000,000

first thought that came to my mind as I was skimming through the thread.

And spoken by somebody who probably can't through a single day without "the help" to somebody else's "the help." I can imagine that went over really well.

Mittens is thick as a brick. It's the only way to explain how stupid he expects everybody else to be.

[Lex]

15. I'm a small business owner. I went to a state university, and that's just

one example of the many, many pieces of help I had that were at least partially taxpayer funded.

[sofa king]

16. Heck, yeah.

Roads, utilities, sanitation, preventing pirates from raiding commerce (on the highways as well as the seas), keeping people like Mitt from totally wrecking local economies, education, environmental protection and cleanup--no small business could exist as it does without those government maintained and regulated services.

Most of those things, when left to the private sector to manage, went straight into the toilet at one time or another.

For example, one reason Washington and Richmond were able to fight a four-year civil war with only 150 miles between them was because Virginia had a horribly maintained network of privately managed toll roads--"pikes," so named after the shaved sticks that blocked the way at the toll gates. Shortly after the battle of Fredericksburg an entire federal army literally bogged down on a series of muddy roads and and the planned campaign had to be cancelled as a result.

After the war, a visitor asked Robert E. Lee which of two roads he should take to get back to Washington. "It makes but little difference," he said, "for whichever route you select, you will wish you had taken the other."

And now the same is true of the choice between phone companies, cable companies, airlines, and every other industry that has been de-regulated and hand-fed to the capitalists who own us.