As President Joe Biden exits the White House, it's worth looking back—not to his presidency, but to more than a decade ago, when Barack Obama was president and Biden was still second in command.
In July 2012, Obama delivered a speech in which the signature line was, "You didn't build that." The speech was, among other things, an address about the size of government, the efficiency of the public and private sectors, and the value of government in getting big things done.
"We've already made a trillion dollars' worth of cuts," Obama said. "We can make some more cuts in programs that don't work, and make government work more efficiently." But ultimately, he argued, government was responsible for so much private success. "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help," he said. "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."
