Subject: Cory the water-well-driller
Date: Friday, October 24, 2008, 8:52 PM

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... Twenty-five 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 stint 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.  Then 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 woodwork 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 cards 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 an employee and I  (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.

  We have been manufacturing the mud pumps for 7 years now and 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 country's (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 a vested interest 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 not compassionate.  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;   penalizing 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.  Like all countries on the decline.  Like 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...  www.cmillerdrilling.com