could someone respond intellegently to this

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10/30/2008 13:18

Subject: could someone respond intellegently to this

Anonymous

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This letter was written by a man in East Texas as an open letter to
Senator Obama. He really does exist and says anyone can email his
letter around, just don't change it. If you know someone who holds to
the theory that the rich have life easy and need to be taxed more
send it to them. This man tells it like it is!

*************

Mr. Obama,

Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by Joe the
plumber, and the persecution that has been heaped on him because he
dared to question you, I find myself motivated to say a few things to
you myself. While Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already
have started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me introduce
myself. You can call me "Cory the well driller". I am a 54 year old
high school graduate. I didn't go to college like you, I was too
ready to go "conquer the world" when I finished high school. 25 years
ago at age 29, I started my own water well drilling business at a
time when the economy here in East Texas was in a tailspin from the
crash of the early 80's oil boom. I didn't get any help from the
government, nor did I look for any. I borrowed what I could from my
sister, my uncle, and even the pawn shop and managed to scrape
together a homemade drill rig and a few tools to do my first job. My
businesses did not start as a result of privilege. They are the
result of my personal drive, personal ambition, self discipline, self
reliance, and a determination to treat my customers fairly. From the
very start my business provided one other (than myself) East Texan a
full time job. I couldn't afford a backhoe the first few years
(something every well drilling business had), so I and my helper had
to dig the mud pits that are necessary for each and every job with
hand shovels. I had to use my 10 year old, 1/2 ton pickup truck for
my water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton truck).

A year and a half after I started the business, I scraped together a
20% down payment to get a modest bank loan and bought a (28 year)
old, worn out, slightly bigger drilling rig to allow me to drill the
deeper water wells in my area. I spent the next few years drilling
wells with the rig while simultaneously rebuilding it between jobs.
Through these years I never knew from one month to the next if I
would have any work or be able to pay the bills. I got behind on my
income taxes one year, and spent the next two years paying that back
(with penalty and interest) while keeping up with ongoing taxes. I
got behind on my water well supply bill 2 different years (way behind
the second time... $80,000.00), and spent over a year paying it back
(each time) while continuing to pay for ongoing supplies C.O.D.. Of
course, the personal stress endured through these experiences and
years is hard to measure. I do have a stent in my heart now to
memorialize it all.

I spent the next 10 years developing the reputation for being the
most competent and most honest water well driller in East Texas. 2
years along the way, I hired another full time employee for the
drilling business so that we could provide full time water well pump
service as well as the well drilling. Also, 3 years along the path, I
bought a water well screen service machine from a friend, starting
business # 2. 5 years later I made a business loan for $100,000.00 to
build a new, higher production, computer controlled screen service
machine. I had designed the machine myself, and it didn't work out
for 3 years so I had to make the loan payments without the benefit of
any added income from the new machine. No government program was
there to help me with the payments, or to help me sleep at night as I
lay awake wondering how I would solve my machine problems or pay my
bills. Finally, after 3 years, I got the screen machine working
properly, and that provided another full time job for an East Texan
in the screen service business.

2 years after that, I made another business loan, this time for
$250,000.00, to buy another used drilling rig and all the support
equipment needed to run another, larger, drill rig. This provided
another 2 full time jobs for East Texans. Again, I spent a couple of
years not knowing if I had made a smart move, or a move that would
bankrupt me. For the third time in 13 years, I had placed everything
I owned on the line, risking everything, in order to build a
business.

A couple of years into this, I came up with a bright idea for a new
kind of mud pump, a fundamentally necessary pump used on water well
drill rigs. I spent my entire life savings to date (just $30,000.00),
building a prototype of the pump and took it to the national water
well convention to show it off. Customers immediately started coming
out of the woodworks to buy the pumps, but there was a problem. I had
depleted my assets making the prototype, and nobody would make me a
business loan to start production of the new pumps. With several
deposits for pump orders in hand, and nowhere to go, I finally
started applying for as many credit card as I could find and took
cash withdrawals on these cards to the tune of over $150,000.00
(including modest loans from my dear sister and brother), to get this
3rd business going.

Yes, once again, I had everything hanging over the line in an effort
to start another business. I had never manufactured anything, and I
had to design and bring into production a complex hydraulic machine
from an untested prototype to a reliable production model (in six
months). How many nights I lay awake wondering if I had just made the
paramount mistake of my life I cannot tell you, but there were
plenty. I managed to get the pumps into production, which immediately
created another 2 full time jobs in East Texas. Some of the models in
the first year suffered from quality issues due to the poor
workmanship of one of my key suppliers, so I and an employee (another
East Texan employed) had to drive across the country to repair
customers' pumps, practically from coast to coast. I stood behind the
product, and made payments to all the credit cards that had financed
me (and my brother and sister). I spent the next 5 years improving
and refining the product, building a reputation for the pump and the
company, working to get the pump into drill rig manufacturers'
product lines, and paying back credit cards. During all this time I
continued to manage a growing water well business that was now
operating 3 drill rig crews, and 2 well service crews. Also, the
screen service business continued to grow. No government programs
were there to help me, Mr. Obama, but that's ok, I didn't expect any,
nor did I want any. I was too busy fighting to make success happen to
sit around waiting for the government to help me.

Now, we have been manufacturing the mud pumps for 7 years, my
combined businesses employ 32 full time employees, and distribute
$5,000,000.00 annually through the local economy. Now, just 4 months
ago I borrowed $1,254,000.00, purchasing computer controlled
machining equipment to start my 4th business, a production machine
shop. The machine shop will serve the mud pump company so that we can
better manufacture our pumps that are being shipped worldwide. Of
course, the machine shop will also do work for outside companies as
well. This has already produced 2 more full time jobs, and 2 more
should develop out of it in the next few months. This should work
out, but if it doesn't it will be because you, and the other
professional politicians like yourself, will have destroyed our
countrys' (and the world) economy with your meddling with mortgage
loan programs through your liberal manipulation and intimidation of
loaning institutions to make sure that unqualified borrowers could
get mortgages. You see, at the very time when I couldn't get a
business loan to get my mud pumps into production, you were working
with Acorn and the Community Reinvestment Act programs to make sure
that unqualified borrowers could buy homes with no down payment, and
even no credit or worse yet, bad credit. Even the infamous, liberal,
Ninja loans (No Income, No Job or Assets). While these unqualified
borrowers were enjoying unrealistically low interest rates, I was
paying 22% to 24% interest on the credit cards that I had used to
provide me the funds for the mud pump business that has created jobs
for more East Texans. It's funny, because after 25 years of turning
almost every dime of extra money back into my businesses to grow
them, it has been only in the last two years that I have finally made
enough money to be able to put a little away for retirement, and now
the value of that has dropped 40% because of the policies you and
your ilk have perpetrated on our country.

You see, Mr. Obama, I'm the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I'm the
guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and
fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and get ahead.
I'm the guy who has been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a
dozen times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating more
and more jobs for East Texans who didn't want to take a risk, and
would not demand from themselves what I have demanded from myself.
I'm the guy you characterize as "the Americans who can afford it the
most" that you believe should be taxed more to provide income
redistribution "to spread the wealth" to those who have never toiled,
sweated, fretted, fought, stressed, or risked anything. You want to
characterize me as someone who has enjoyed a life of privilege and
who needs to pay a higher percentage of my income than those who have
bought into your entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr. Obama, as I
resent all who want to use class warfare as a tool to advance their
political career. What's worse, each year more Americans buy into
your liberal entitlement culture, and turn to the government for
their hope of a better life instead of themselves. Liberals are
succeeding through more than 40 years of collaborative effort between
the predominant liberal media, and liberal indoctrination programs in
the public school systems across our land.

What is so terribly sad about this is this. America was made great by
people who embraced the one-time American culture of self reliance,
self motivation, self determination, self discipline, personal
betterment, hard work, risk taking. A culture built around the
concept that success was in reach of every able bodied American who
would strive for it. Each year that less Americans embrace that
culture, we all descend together. We descend down the socialist path
that has brought country after country ultimately to bitter and
unremarkable states. If you and your liberal comrades in the media
and school systems would spend half as much effort cultivating a
culture of can-do across America as you do cultivating your
entitlement culture, we could see Americans at large embracing the
conviction that they can elevate themselves through personal
betterment, personal achievement, and self reliance. You see, when
people embrace such ideals, they act on them. When people act on such
ideals, they succeed. All of America could find herself elevating
instead of deteriorating. But that would eliminate the need for
liberal politicians, wouldn't it, Mr. Obama? The country would not
need you if the country was convinced that problem solving was best
left with individuals instead of the government. You and all your
liberal comrades have got a vested interested in creating a dependent
class in our country. It is the very business of liberals to create
an ever expanding dependence on government. What's remarkable is that
you, who have never produced a job in your life, are going to tax me
to take more of my money and give it to people who wouldn't need my
money if they would get off their entitlement mentality asses and
apply themselves at work, demand more from themselves, and quit
looking to liberal politicians to raise their station in life.

You see, I know because I've had them work for me before. Hundreds of
them over these 25 years. People who simply will not show up to work
on time. People who just will not work 5 days in a week, much less, 6
days. People always looking for a way to put less effort out. People
who actually tell me that they would do more if I just would first
pay them more. People who take off work to sit in government offices
to apply to get free government handouts (gee, I wonder how things
would have turned out for them if they had spent that time earning
money and pleasing their employer?). You see, all of this comes from
your entitlement mentality culture.

Oh, I know you will say I am uncompassionate. Sorry, Mr. Obama, wrong
again. You see, I've seen what the average percentage of your income
has been given to charities over the years of 2000 to 2004 (ignoring
the years you started running for office - can you
pronounce "politically motivated"), you averaged less than 1%
annually. And your running mate, Joe Biden, averaged less than ¼% of
his annual income in charitable contributions over the last 10 years.
Like so many liberals, the two of you want to give to the needy, just
as long as it is someone else's money you are giving to them. I won't
say what I have given to charities over the last 25 years, but the
percentage is several times more than you and Joe Biden. combined
(don't you just hate google?). Tell me again how you feel my pain.

In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent everything
that is wrong with our country. You represent the culture of
government dependence instead of self reliance; Entitlement mentality
instead of personal achievement; Penalization of the successful to
reward the unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open
mindedness and open debate. If you are successful, you may preside
over the final transformation of America from being the greatest and
most self-reliant culture on earth, to just another country of
whiners and wimps, who sit around looking to the government to solve
their problems. Like all of western Europe. All countries on the
decline. All countries that, because of liberal socialistic
mentalities, have a little less to offer mankind every year.

God help us...

Cory Miller

just a ordinary, extraordinary American, the way a lot of Americans
used to be.

P.S. Yes, Mr. Obama, I am a real American...
http://www.cmillerdrilling.com