Quote:
Originally Posted by galleryseek
No, that was not his point. His point was that anyone who owns a business owes something to others for their success. And it's very easy to prove that's a bad argument.
(1) Your parents paid taxes so that you could go to a public school in which a teacher could help you. That debt has been paid.
(2) Your parents OR yourself (depending on timelines here) paid taxes so that you could drive on public roads and bridges. That debt has been paid.
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There is a bit of a flaw in your logic here. The average cost of public school is $13K per year per student. So assuming you went to all 12 years of school that is $156,000 so unless your parents paid $156,000 in taxes while you were in school, that is not a debt paid.
However, you are not asked to pay that back. You don't have go out to every tax payer and give them a few bucks for helping you get an education.
The same goes for roads. The amount you or your parents pay in taxes that goes towards the creation and upkeep of roads is only a small amount of the total needed.
For many things, roads and education just being two of them, the money is pooled together and used for the common good. If you owe anyone for your education it is people who don't have kids who still pay the tax that educated you.
I understand what Obama is saying and in many ways he is correct, he just said it in a strange way and should punch whoever wrote the speech in the face.
He is simply saying that if you are successful there were other people and outside influences that helped you get there whether you realize it or not. If you are a successful webmaster you took the initiative and had the drive to put in the hard work to get that success, but you sure as hell didn't invent the internet. You didn't create Google or Yahoo, or the other places that you are likely getting your traffic from. You didn't invent the computer and then figure out ways to improve it and mass produce it so that it could be affordable to the millions who now have them and use them to access your business. You didn't create HTML code or the software you use to build your site. Hell, you might not have even shot the content that is on your sites and I'm pretty confident you don't supply the millions with their ISP connections. These are all things you had nothing to do with, but they directly affect and influence your success and without them you have no business.
You are the motor that powers the car of your success, but without tires, a steering wheel, a transmission and other parts you aren't going to be getting very far.
Where his speech goes off the rails in not where he points out that a person's success was influenced by others, but where he suggests that the government can help average middle class people to gain that level of success and that somehow his administration is either going help them achieve that without them having to do much themselves.