Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Obama: If You've Got a Business, You Didn't Build That ...



The more I hear this petulant, asshole spew this bullshit, the more I think of my classmates from West Elementary School in Lancaster, OH.

Nearly every kid in my class was from a working class family.

We all had the same teachers and familiar enough family backgrounds that you could say that we all started from the same starting line.

Yet I'm sure that if you could rank all the kids by some objective standards, you would probably find that the most successful of our class did some crazy shit......like defer immediate gratification for something better long term.

So instead of knocking up a girlfriend, the successful kids were studying. Instead of rolling a bag of weed into doobies, the successful kids were bagging groceries. Instead of dropping out of high school, the successful kids developed some marketable skills.

I know of one of my classmates from West Elementary who's probably making at least a half a mill a year as a partner in a national accounting firm.

I don't begrudge his success one iota even though we're in the same profession.

Why?

He went to Ohio State and worked his ass off while I was at the University of Cincinnati sleeping through class. .... if I went at all.

He's transferred his family across the country taking positions in Atlanta and other points of origin.... something I never would have ever done.

So how much should Phil pay for the exact same infrastructure that was provided for everyone at West Elementary?

If he's making a half a million a year, he's paying at least 200k in federal, state and local taxes. How much more should he pay for the very f%&*in' teachers and roads and bridges and police/fire departments I had access to?

Conversely, how much more should I pay for the low life piles of shit who were drinking and partying while I was studying for the CPA exam?

I own a business. I pay for those roads, teachers etc. with every gallon of gas I buy, every real estate tax check I cut, and I pay more in taxes and get a hell of lot less in government services than your average Joe.

The fact is that life is a series of forks in the road. You can have the best teachers, roads, bridges, cops etc. but your success (or lack there of) will be completely related to the decisions you make in life. In general, the more you're willing to delay gratification for something bigger later......the more successful you're going to be.

So Obama can kiss my ass.

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