Principle & counter-principle

Speaking last Friday in Roanoke, Virginia, Pres. Barack Obama now-infamously said,

"If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

Mitt Romney, at a campaign event yesterday in Irwin, Pennsylvania, responded:

"Something happened on Friday -- President Obama exposed what he really thinks about free people and the American vision and government, what he really thinks about America itself.

"He probably wants to understand why his policies failed. If you want to understand why his policies have failed, why what he has done has not created jobs or rising incomes in America, you can look at what he said.

"And what he said was this, he said, and I quote -- and he's speaking, by the way, of businesses like this one, small businesses, big businesses, middle-size businesses, mining businesses, manufacturing, service businesses of all kinds. He said this:

'If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.'

"That 'somebody else' is government, in his view. He goes on to describe the people who deserve the credit for building this business. And, of course, he describes people who we care very deeply about, who make a difference in our lives -- our schoolteachers, firefighters, people who build roads.

"We need those things. We value schoolteachers, firefighters, people who build roads. You really couldn't have a business if you didn't have those things. But, you know, we pay for those things.

"The taxpayers pay for government. It's not like government just provides those to all of us and we say,

'Oh thank you, government, for doing those things.'

"No, in fact, we pay for them and we benefit from them, and we appreciate the work that they do and the sacrifices that are done by people who work in government. But they did not build this business."

And that's the truth -- not bankable truth, alas, but truth nonetheless.