President Barack Obama opened his 2012 State of the Union address amid thunderous applause.

Soon after opening, the president declared ‘the basic American promise’ must be restored. That is, the ‘promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college and put a little away for retirement.’

This does sound nice. However, after scribbling out ‘the pursuit of’ from the famous axiom: ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’ and after careful thought, a problem arises.   

Hard work could mean picking up very heavy rocks and moving them back and forth across the street all day. This task would be very time consuming and would require a great deal of effort. If the street was a busy one, there would be many witnesses to note the rock-mover’s hard work.

In accordance with Obama’s basic American promise, the rock-movers should get a home, money to send their kids to college and some other things. Admittedly, moving rocks back and forth is not likely what the president had in mind.   

Nevertheless, a valid response to Obama’s philosophy stems from this interpretation. That is, people’s expectations for a good income should not be determined by how hard they work, but by how well they meet a demand in the market. The reason for this is two-fold.

First, the difficulty of work is subjective. It is not a good unit of measure. For example, in this most recent State of the Union address, Obama, as usual, divided America into two groups: the ‘hardworking Americans’ and the ‘folks at the top.’   

Likely, the president hopes to inspire images of carefree rich people rolling around in their money. Notwithstanding lottery winnings and inheritances, a fortune can only be built and sustained by someone’s hard work to provide goods, services or capital — for others’ benefit —and their own.

Meaning that aside from lottery winners and trust-fund kids having fun at Occupy Wall Street, all rich people became rich by providing something society demands. This leads into the second reason. 

Hard work alone does nothing for anyone — unless it results in something that satisfies the market. Whether one is moving rocks back and forth, developing solar cells at Solyndra or making electric cars at General Motors, without demand, there is a net loss. 

Normally, the free market would absorb such a loss. Private individuals and companies invested in these ventures would be subjected to a loss and then take their money elsewhere. Others, having the insight to avoid these ventures, would lose nothing. 

When the government provides loans, grants and investments to projects that most Americans do not want or cannot afford, we are all forced to take a loss, and we get nothing in return.

For instance, the Chevy Volt, General Motors’ government subsidized hybrid-electric car, costs just under $40,000, according to Reuters. The average price of a new car in the United States is $28,400, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Because of this price difference and the Volt’s reported tendency to catch fire, its marketability suffers. In other words, the Obama administration threw hundreds of millions of our dollars at something despite a lack of feasibility. 

There will be electric cars when the market demands them. However, subsidizing the production of electric cars, even in $100 million increments, will not magically compel demand. Instead, it will waste money in $100 million increments.

Near the end of his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama quoted Lincoln saying: ‘Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.’

If the president truly believes this, then, because of frequent government interventions by his administration in the private sector, we must assume that Obama has little faith in the American people.

Michael Stikkel is a sophomore computer engineering major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at mcstikke@syr.edu.   

Published on January 28, 2012 at 12:00 pm