J
John Benz
Guest
from:
Ken Reeves
Alcon Labs
Sr. Design Engineer
817-551-4601
Note the last line. Everyone needs to read this. Then go vote
I don't usually send this stuff out but worth the read. Mike Miller is my business partner from Baton Rouge and Cory the well Driller is his first cousin. Please read Cory's letter below. Tks,
This is my first cousin and his story is true. He never asked me for a loan.
Mike,
Given the furor about "Joe the plumber" I've
written an open letter to Mr. Obama myself. I think it is
worth the read. Maybe if Americans could take a closer look
at what a small businessman is, they wouldn't want
politicians penalizing their success. Feel free to forward
it if you want...
Cory
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 <pi>% 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
Ken Reeves
Alcon Labs
Sr. Design Engineer
817-551-4601
Note the last line. Everyone needs to read this. Then go vote
I don't usually send this stuff out but worth the read. Mike Miller is my business partner from Baton Rouge and Cory the well Driller is his first cousin. Please read Cory's letter below. Tks,
This is my first cousin and his story is true. He never asked me for a loan.
Mike,
Given the furor about "Joe the plumber" I've
written an open letter to Mr. Obama myself. I think it is
worth the read. Maybe if Americans could take a closer look
at what a small businessman is, they wouldn't want
politicians penalizing their success. Feel free to forward
it if you want...
Cory
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 <pi>% 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
