Government contributes to a lack of success too, no?

How government can contribute to your business.

I was reading this post by Proof Positive this morning.  He's commenting on the ridiculous notion propounded by Elizabeth Warren and now president Obama, that government makes success possible and indeed is a major contributor to anyone's success.  Proof makes a great point about how the availability of public roads etc. does not guarantee success;

Got that? If you are rich, if you are successful, you didn't do it on your own, you got a lot of help from the public** who financed the infrastructure. But, have you ever driven by a strip mall, where one or more of the tenants, but not all of them had gone out of business? Or driven by two businesses side by side where one was open for business and the one right next door was shuttered and boarded up?

Didn't the same roads and bridges supply both businesses? Didn't the same schools educate those who worked in the strip mall? The same fire and police protect them all?

It inspired me to add a comment to his blog that I think is worth repeating as well;

Your double asterisk point is worthy of it's own post: Those who were successfully creating wealth, creating commerce and creating jobs by their own efforts, certainly were generating more taxable income than those who were not doing so.

Therefore they contributed more to those roads than others. Consequently they should be able to argue that others in society were benefiting more from private efforts to grow their business than those who were exerting themselves. Why? The rate return on investment when the investment is small, or zero, is astounding. The payback for the job creating business is substantially smaller.

Rather than being admonished, those businesses should be thanked for their disproportional contribution to those roads and bridges etc.

There is another important point to make.  If liberals insist that government is indeed a major contributor to the success of a business, then it must also be complicit in the failures of unsuccessful businesses, no?  If government is a partner, it is also a partner in the failures, and there seem to be a lot of those lately Mr. President. 

Wear that for a while.