Lightnin' Entertainment Group & Bobby Hatfield's Blog

This is long, as real life stories tend to be – but worth every word! :

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…

* * * * * * * * *
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 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 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
Gilmer, TX

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

P.S. Yes, Mr. Obama, I am a real American...