Speaking at the Heritage Foundation Wednesday, Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan had strong words for both President Obama and Elizabeth Warren, the liberal firebrand and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Massachusetts.
Warren recently made several comments on wealth and social responsibility that went viral over the Internet.
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“You built a factory out there? Good for you,” Warren said. “But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.”
“Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
Asked by moderator Ed Feulner about Warren’s comments, Ryan responded.
“Money and wealth made and created in America is the government’s unless they benevolently spend it back to people. It’s the other way around,” Ryan said. “No one is suggesting that we don’t need good schools and roads and infrastructure as a basis for a free society and a free enterprise system. But the notion that the nucleus of society is the government and not the individual, the family, the entrepreneur, is to me just completely, inherently backwards.”