If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
“There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t… look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something: there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. 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. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point of Obama's remarks was not to explain the necessity of contributing taxes for the performance of vital public services, treating the government as a necessary expense. He’s explicitly stating that no one has ever succeeded, at anything, without the government’s indispensible assistance. The government is, therefore, the rightful owner of all property and wealth, morally justified in taking whatever it deems necessary.