Column: Obama’s vision puts government first

Like many Americans still enduring Obama’s broken economy, I was astounded by the president’s recent comments.

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

This comment is incredibly insulting to entrepreneurs who work 60 hours a week building businesses that provide products, services and employment to society.

The president said he is “always struck” by businessmen who think they alone deserve all the credit for their own success. Instead, “we do things together,” he said. Congratulations, Mr. President — nearly every adult who has succeeded in American business realized that long ago.

The president believes he is spouting some profound truth. Instead, he is highlighting his own ignorance and lack of respect for free enterprise.

As someone who spent 31 years building a manufacturing business, of course I would tell you that I didn’t do it alone. Anyone who’s talked to businessmen has heard the same thing: We couldn’t have made it without our dedicated employees. We owe it all to our customers. Our families provided great support. Our communities were crucial. And, yes, government provided infrastructure — from roads to the stable legal environment of a free society.

Obviously, government infrastructure is important to free enterprise’s success. But it is free enterprise that funded it, by giving us the most successful economy the world has ever seen. This circle of prosperity is threatened when the president disparages the role of business.

The president’s vision is too narrow. “There are some things,” he said, “we do better together.” He then listed these things. All his examples involve the federal government. This is incredible, but not surprising from a man who really seems to believe the center of economic activity lies in Washington.

If President Obama had any experience in the private sector, his definition of “we” would be much richer. “We” do many things better together in a free market thriving within a civil society.

Shortly after our independence, Alexis de Tocqueville was struck by how good Americans were at working together — in businesses, in charities, in towns, and by building schools, libraries, associations and communities. That’s still striking today. It’s no wonder that the people who organize the voluntary good works in our communities are often the people most successful in business. Entrepreneurship teaches you to work with others. President Obama might have known this if he had respect for any actual business people.

Instead, he seems to believe all goodness flows from government. His vision seems to be a nation of citizens grateful mainly for whatever benefits an all-powerful government deems they deserve. We’ll all wait to be told by federal authorities what to eat, what to drive, how to run our town’s schools, how to get our health care, how much money we can keep and how to succeed in business. He talks of us all being “in this together.” But for Obama, “this” amounts to making us clients of an ever more controlling federal government.

The problem isn’t just that we cannot afford this. Obama’s effort is bankrupting America. But worse, as government grows, our freedom recedes. The citizen’s relationship to government becomes the most important relationship in his or her life. The more important government is and the more that it tries giving us, the less room there is for others. We become more like the France de Tocqueville knew — where the people did not work together voluntarily the way Americans did because they instead relied on the state, not each other.

There’s a better vision. It’s one where we work together, under the discipline of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, for mutual benefit without Washington directing every move. It’s one where government has a place — but the extraordinary spirit of the entrepreneur is primary.

The Wausau Daily Herald.

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Opinion: Improve economy by growing private sector

While President Barack Obama’s record fundraising schedule means that he’s “too busy” to come to Wisconsin, I was pleased to join Mitt Romney in Janesville on Monday as he laid out his vision for returning economic health to the private sector. That’s the top priority for working Americans, who know that Washington can’t spend us out of a recession and who don’t share the president’s view that the private sector is “doing fine.”

After adding more than $5 trillion to the national debt, it would be refreshing for Obama just to admit the truth – it didn’t work – and that he will try a fresh approach to strengthen our economy and fix what’s broken in Washington. Instead, he insists on staying the course. Does America really want to double down on his policies and accept four more years mired in the economic doldrums?

When the president was inaugurated, he promised to cut the deficit in half. Instead, government has grown and the deficit has increased. The United States will add $5.3 trillion in debt during Obama’s four-year term, driving our debt to over $16 trillion. Every American’s share of that debt has ballooned from almost $33,000 in 2008 to over $50,000 today. The president calls these trillions of dollars in deficit spending an “investment.” It’s fair to ask what all this borrowing has bought us.

The Federal Reserve just reported that between 2007 and 2010, families’ median net worth fell by nearly 40%. This is a depressing reality. And the Obama administration has no plan to reverse these enormous losses. Unemployment is on the rise. And while the White House boasts of creating 4 million private-sector jobs, the working-age population has grown by 6 million. We’re losing ground. Hard-working Americans are being left behind.

The problem is not a reduction in government payrolls. The federal workforce has grown under this administration. Between 2007 and 2010, total federal wages and benefits increased by about 13%, while wages and benefits in the private sector fell by 6%. Nobody wants to underpay government workers for their efforts, but we simply cannot afford to overpay them. Governments at all levels need to benchmark public-sector compensation against that of the private sector.

Wisconsin’s leaders were elected in 2010, at the depth of the recession. Facing an annual deficit of $1.8 billion, they put in place reasonable reforms to limit spending and to control the growth in compensation for government workers. The steps taken in Wisconsin were not easy; they took political courage. They were enacted in the face of an extraordinary level of intimidation from opponents of real reform.

But these reforms are working. State and local governments have been able to balance budgets, some even producing surpluses. Government employees now have the freedom to choose whether to pay to join a union. Many are choosing to keep their hard-earned money.

The reforms were designed to give state and local governments the flexibility they need to balance their budgets without having to lay off workers. Wisconsin is open for business again. Private payrolls are growing. We all should be proud that the citizens of Wisconsin decided to support these reforms with their votes.

Wisconsin and America cannot afford another four years of increasing debt and growing government. Yet that is all Obama knows, and it is all he is able to offer. We need leadership to reduce the rate of growth of government spending and leadership that recognizes that growing government is not the solution; growing the private sector is.

Ron Johnson is a Republican U.S. senator from Wisconsin.

Published on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

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