S O U N D   O F F

November 5, 2008

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 drilli ng 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 adva nce 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 philoso phies 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 American, the way a lot of Americans
used to be.

P.S. Yes, Mr. Obama, I am a real American... meet me:
www.cmillerdrilling.com : or www.centerlinemanufacturing.com