NRO's David French: How Much Does Government "Give" Entrepreneurs?

The President is under the impression that government creates or is largely responsible for entrepreneurship. He scoffed (here) that as businesspersons, "You didn't make it on your own," going into Elizabeth Warren Fauxchohontas-speak. He assumes, wrongly of course, that government exists for its own reward instead of existing to provide a framework for the individual--the people--to create the wealth of this nation.

As you can see from my previous post (here), I'm exercised over the assumption that the President makes that the first fruits of citizens must go to the government. That is anti American.

Over at The Corner blog at National Review Online (here), David French does some simple math to come up with what government provides the entrepreneur:

Here are all the things Obama says businesses depend on, combined with their relative share of federal spending:

“There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.” (Education spending — 2 percent of federal budget.)
“Somebody invested in roads and bridges.” (Transportation and infrastructure spending — 3 percent of federal budget.)
“The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.” (Science and medical research, plus Al Gore’s vice-presidential salary — 2 percent of federal budget.)
“There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own.” (Statistically insignificant amount spent on federal firefighting.)
“That’s how we funded the GI Bill.” (Let’s give him all of national defense with this reference — 20 percent of federal budget.)
“That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hoover Dam.” (See above for infrastructure spending.)
“That’s how we invented the Internet.” (See above for research spending — no double dipping for mentioning the Internet twice.)
“That’s how we sent a man to the moon.” (NASA is somewhere in “other spending” — the entire “other” category is 4 percent.)
Now I’m no mathematician, but I add up all those percentages and get (generously) Obama referencing spending about 31 percent of the federal budget — the least controversial 31 percent. Why did he leave out the other 69 percent? Why did he leave out the 41 percent we spend on entitlement programs? Or the 6 percent we throw away on interest payments? Or the 13 percent (greater than all the non-defense spending he mentioned) on safety-net programs?

Read the rest of his post here.