RUSH: Eleven US cities, “Eleven U.S. markets contain more than 100,000 small businesses each — and an additional 14 metropolitan areas have between 50,000 and 100,000 apiece. The total for these 25 markets, according to a new study by On Numbers, is 3.13 million small businesses. Government agencies have not created an official definition of a small business, so On Numbers uses its own parameters, encompassing private-sector business establishments with fewer than 100 employees.”
So here’s Obama. He’s out there saying (impression), “You got a small business? You didn’t create that on your own! You didn’t do that. You didn’t build the roads. You didn’t build the bridges! There are a lot of hard working people out there. You didn’t do that much. You’re nothing!” Well, he’s telling 3.13 million small businesses in 25 markets that they didn’t do anything. And each one of them employ people. How many people do you figure these small businesses employ? What would be the average employee number?
If they’re using 100 employees as a small business then could we say 20 and be safe? So you got 3.13 million small businesses made up of 20 people at each that he’s just offended. He doesn’t know who he’s talking to. He doesn’t. Folks, he doesn’t understand. I know he’s a “smart” guy, and he thinks he’s smart, but he doesn’t understand the American experience. Romney’s right. He does not at all have the slightest understanding of the American experience. And he’s undermined himself every time he opens his mouth trying to sound like an expert on it.
All right, here’s Robert in Bloomfield, Michigan. Hi, Robert. I’m glad you waited. Great to have you on the program.
CALLER: Rush, it’s an honor. You make me laugh. You make me smile. You stimulate my brain cells. I really appreciate it. I love listening to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much, Robert. I appreciate that.
CALLER: I want you to know that Deloitte, Touche & Ross was the firm. Touche first ate Ross and the rest is history.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: And I would trust any numbers that they came out with.
RUSH: Cool.
CALLER: Wonderful firm. Let me say that our president is totally clueless on business. He’s absolutely ignorant when it comes to roads and bridges. I have developed thousands of lots in southeastern Michigan. I have built over 5,000 homes, and I’m not alone. All across our nation, people have done exactly the same thing. Thousands of developers and builders.
RUSH: Right. And you built the roads, too, didn’t you?
CALLER: That’s right. All the subdivisions that people drive on, that was risk-reward.
RUSH: You built the roads and the bridges to get ’em to the houses that you built for ’em.
CALLER: Well, I built, as an example, two miles of a road called 22 Mile Road. I built those miles of road because it tied up enough land to create the value. You’re gonna create that infrastructure and spend a million dollars on a road. Why let somebody else buy the adjacent land after you put the improvements in, if you can afford to tie it up?
RUSH: This is an excellent, excellent point. Forget businesses. Homes, subdivisions, the roads that get to ’em, and the developers that build ’em. It’s like Romney says: Obama’s whole philosophy is upside down. It does not comport with the American experience. He’s never been taught the American experience. He has been taught to resent it and to dislike it. He has no idea what it is, and as such, he cannot relate to it.
He just cannot.
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RUSH: Yeah, isn’t this the same Barack Obama who used to run around saying all the country’s bridges were falling down? They needed roads and shovel-ready jobs! His precious government built all the roads and bridges, right? And he used to say that the bridges are falling down. So what good was the government’s work?
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RUSH: Jerry, Austin, Texas, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush, it’s Joey. And thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: Sorry, Joey. Great to have you here.
CALLER: All right. Well, your speech has given me some inspiration. I did some research, and it’s about the first coast-to-coast and the first north-to-south road in America. It’s the single idea of an individual entrepreneur named Carl G. Fisher, who started in 1912, ran from Times Square to Lincoln Park, San Francisco. Was built entirely by private investment capital of the people along the route, small businesses who grouped together or investment capital people who finished in 1922, named the Lincoln Highway.
RUSH: Lincoln Highway, and it was private sector construction, eh?
CALLER: Yeah, well, it was private individuals, private businesses, and a single entrepreneur who did that. The Dixie Highway, the Miami Beach resort community, and participated in the Combs bridge.
RUSH: The Dixie Highway, I drive on the Dixie Highway, and you know what? There are businesses on that road.
CALLER: That’s right, businesses who actually came together to build that road. It was entirely funded privately.
RUSH: Some of them are red light businesses, but they’re there.
CALLER: Oh. Wow. Well, until 1956 when the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act was passed, actually was directly inspired by the Lincoln Highway, at which found the Feds took over the private industry of building roads —
RUSH: Well, they didn’t —
CALLER: — in the United States of America.
RUSH: Well, look. The Interstate Highway System, I lived in a little town where I-55 was built right through it and a local businessman got the contract to pour the concrete. His name was R. B. Potashnick. R. B. bid for it, of course government money, but where does that come from? It was tax money. The American people built the Interstate Highway System, not the federal government. The federal government appropriated the money, but they got the money from the people via taxes to do it. This notion that the government has a pile of money that nobody else has ever had and they use it for all this benevolent stuff is a crock. But, anyway, I didn’t know that, your story about the Lincoln Highway. I love it. I’m glad you called. I’m glad you got squeezed in here.