Herman Cain: ‘Being Rich Is Cool’

“July 23, 2012

Rich is Cool By Herman CainIf the polls are any indication, it hasn’t worked, but the Obama campaign spent big money over the past month attacking Mitt Romney for what they apparently believe is the worst sin imaginable: He is rich.And as we know now (not that it was a big surprise), President Obama’s disdain for those who have earned substantial wealth runs deep. He doesn’t like you having all that money (unless you contribute it to his campaign), and he really doesn’t like you taking credit for having earned it. That’s why he said the following:

“Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

As far as Obama is concerned, anyone who is successful got that way because of the system, by which he means the government. Democrats sometimes refer to the rich as “the winners in life’s lottery,” which is to say they merely got lucky in a game of chance – and that’s why they need to fork over so much of their wealth in taxes, so Democrats can “spread the wealth around” to all those other smart, hardworking people, who just didn’t happen to win life’s lottery.

What a load of crap. To listen to these people, you’d think being rich was the worst thing anyone could do.

Well I’ve got news for them: Being rich is cool. Not only that, but when someone has become rich, others should endeavor to learn as much as they can about how he or she did it, instead of resenting it and dismissing it as merely lucking out because of all the help the government provided.

The best example I can give you is my dad. He started his adult life in the 1940 with nothing but the clothes on his back. At one point he worked three jobs at the same time. I suppose wealth is relative to everyone’s situation, but my dad had a goal of getting rich as he defined it – and he achieved his goal.

Did the government deserve any credit for his success? When he walked off that small dirt farm in Tennessee, the road wasn’t even paved. I’m not saying there were no government functions that worked well and benefited him. Of course there were. But they were the same ones that benefited everybody else. My dad achieved his particular goals because of his particular dedication, his good plan and his hard work. And yes, he was perfectly within his rights to be proud of himself for being so smart and working so hard.

And let’s be honest: It was true then, and it’s even truer today, that when you get rich you largely do it in spite of the government – its rules, its regulations, its confiscatory tax policies . . . and now the tendency of certain leaders to assail you for your success.

The coolest thing about rich people is that, in order to get rich, you have to make your skill and your capital work for other people. Instead of ripping Bain Capital for its success, the Obama Administration and the media should study what Bain did and how it did it. Bain created thousands of jobs – many more on a net basis than it eliminated via strategic layoffs – because it made smart business decisions and built successful enterprises.

I’ll take that any day over what Obama does, which is to flush money down the toilet in the form of stimulus that doesn’t stimulate, “green energy” investments that lead straight to bankruptcy and tax and regulatory policies that stifle capital formation and entrepreneurial innovation.

Mitt Romney got rich because he is smart and he works hard. That makes him pretty darn cool in my book. Those of you who resent the rich, get over it and study how they did it. Along the way, you’ll discover that the rich not only pay most of the taxes, but in all likelihood they pay your paycheck too.

And you’d better study them while you can, because there’s no telling how many of them will be left once Obama gets finished with them.”