John Sununu accused President Barack Obama Tuesday of “condemning success” when he said Americans didn’t build their businesses on their own, a statement Sununu said insults and scares private sector investors.
“All the president has been doing is condemning success,” the former White House chief of staff and New Hampshire governor, now a campaign surrogate for Republican Mitt Romney told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Tuesday night. “How can you be president of this country, if you condemn the success that America is noted for.
“And when you demean the business people, particularly the small business people that you hope will create some of the jobs that this administration hasn’t been able to coax out of the private sector, when you insult them you scare them again,” Sununu said,
He said American investors and businesses aren’t going to be creating new jobs “with a president like that.”
“I guarantee you that what we are seeing in the private sector is a hoarding of capital. They are waiting to see the results of the presidential election,” Sununu said. “If President Obama is elected, that capital goes offshore. If Mitt Romney is elected, they buy equipment and they start hiring here.”
Fox News political analyst Juan Williams, who also appeared with Hannity, took issue with that statement, saying Sununu was “hurting his argument and his candidate” by suggesting that American businesses don’t care about making money, regardless of who is in the White House.
The Romney campaign on Tuesday morning unleashed a barrage of criticism against Obama, criticizing his policies toward business.
In a conference call with Romney staffers, Sununu said. “I wish this president
would learn how to be an American.” He later clarified the statement, saying the president has to learn “the American formula for creating business.”
But on Hannity, Sununu referred to Obama’s statement over the weekend that business owners weren’t completely responsible for their own success as “an absolute disgrace.”
“I cannot imagine how that thought popped into his head,” he told Hannity and Williams.
Williams, however, suggested that Sununu had missed the point of what Obama said before he misspoke — that the American system of government and private investment provides infrastructure and assistance to help individuals and businesses grow.
He also took issue with Sununu’s argument that Obama’s tax policies are scaring businesses and investors as well.
“Overwhelmingly the polls indicate Americans agree with President Obama,” Williams told Sununu. “People who are rich in this country should pay something back and help future generations define their footing.”
“It doesn't make any difference what I think; it doesn't make any difference what you think,” Sununu responded. “What makes a difference is what he has created in the mind of the job creators of America, and they are scared stiff.”
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.