Obama DOES Get the American Dream

POSTED BY JHW22

I am a small business owner -- well in the least income-generating sense of the word. I work all by myself in my house and have yet to make a profit. But I collect state sales taxes, fulfill orders and have customers. So, technically, I am a small business owner who created one job -- my own.

But before that I was a stay-at-home mom and before that I worked as a teacher's aide in special education and before that I worked in advertising and before that I worked temp jobs and before that I worked in escrow and before that I worked at a video store.

Do you see a trend? My trend is most likely your trend. Very few Americans actually create a business or jobs. Only something like 18% of Americans have their own business (every link I found states the overall rate but all the reports are about segments compared to the overall).

So why is it President Obama is being made out to be someone who doesn't understand the American Dream when more than 80% of us understand him far better than we understand Mitt Romney? (Obviously, that is a TOTALLY rhetorical question.)

As a business owner I am getting REALLY tired of hearing implications that Barack Obama is worthless because he never created anything. Because if that's the case, my husband is worthless. And my parents. And my grandparents. And my aunts and uncles. I have a cousin who started her own business -- but ironically she's a speech therapist who services kiddos on MEDICAID. Even her business wouldn't be possible without that help President Obama was talking about when he said no one builds a business solely on their own. She proudly acknowledges that she couldn't be a business owner without social services. So she calls bullshit on the GOP talking points aka distortions aka lies about what Obama said about who built what.

Guess what? Obama didn't say people don't create their own businesses. He just said they all have some government resources that help. And since not that many people actually start a business in the first place, I'd say President Obama has a pretty good handle on the reality of starting one. I'm pretty sure he gets the American Dream!