Fwd: Cory the Well Driller

This is a very interesting letter from a real person in East Texas.

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... www.cmillerdrilling.com



12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bummer dude, now you have to get in line with all the other people who worked hard and became millionaires and now need to pay their fair percentage. Just because you wear a hardhat and got a boner for Kenny Chesney doesn't make you any different than Bob the Wall Street guy.
Sure you didn't ask the government for a handout, but you certainly had no problem hitting your parents up for the cash.
All that said your taxes are being raised by a couple of percentage points; take a xanax, you're not going to go out of business.
Bust out your calculator that means you pay a few thousand dollars extra on your MILLIONS earned. But hey if that means that the rising tide on everyone else gets lifted so they can start to afford stuff again, guess what? Good for the economy and more business for you.
That makes it good for EVERYONE, not just Cory the Economic Dumbshit.

SJT said...

Yes, Mr. Miller, the evil Obama is out to take every lose dime you and and wreck the economy at the same time? How can he accomplish this? By raising marginal income tax rates on 1% of the population to the level they were at under Bill Clinton. And we all remember how much the economy sucked back then.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like Mr. Miller has listened to a lot of Rush Limbaugh over the years, cause he sure hates him some lib'rals. In other Texas news, http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6084678.html

Potato Head said...

Wait a minute--he didn't have the credit to get a business loan but he could apply for dozens of credit cards on the same rating? Why not remortgage his house? I know: they probably wouldn't let him because he's you know, not one of them...

Anonymous said...

When are these rightie idiots going to realize that people have been "persecuting" Joe the Plumber because he is a lying ignorant moron, and not because he "asked a question".

What color is the sky in their world?

Jessie said...

At first I was feeling like this guy had a point-- but then realized that he should think about how much suffering he could have avoided if there were low-interest government loans for small business start ups. What a "handout" like this could have meant for him back when he started would be fewer years scraping by, more security, and less chance of the heart problems he alluded to. Just because he suffered so much (and I do respect him for that) doesn't mean every American has to.

Anonymous said...

The funny thing I get out of all this is where he talks about not going to college because he was "too ready to go 'conquer the world' when I finished high school." By jumping the gun, Miller has rendered himself sufficiently ignorant to write claptrap like this. I wonder how much better he'd be doing with his pumps if he'd taken courses in mechanical engineering (to give him a little more oomph in the design phase of things) or geology (so he can get the most out of his well sites). Not to mention this:

"People who actually tell me that they would do more if I just would first pay them more."

Well, yeah, no shit. It's called paying what people are worth instead of feeding them some line about "market-competitive wages". This guy aimed straight for the top and I'll bet has never worked a wage-slave job in his life, and he has the nerve to accuse people demanding better money for what is almost certainly rather difficult work of entitlement?

Anonymous said...

This:
Even the infamous, liberal, Ninja loans (No Income, No Job or Assets). While these unqualified borrowers were enjoying unrealistically low interest rates

followed immediately by this:

"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"

goes to show you that this guy is a liar or a completely incompetent business man.

So why didn't he get himself said "Ninja" loan? Was it because it was "liberal?" Surely he lived in a house - if he's not above using credit cards, why didn't he get a mortgage, which is tax deductible?!

That said, if you ask a lot of right-wing small business owners (and I have, BTW), whether they would rather pay $20,000 to a health insurance company or $3,000 in extra taxes, they say $20,000, because, heaven forbid, we can't pay more taxes to the evil government!

In other words, when ideology has indoctrinated you so far that you actually act against your best interests, you deserve to reap what you sow.

Anonymous said...

And another thing:

While this: "You see, at the very time when I couldn't get a business loan to get my mud pumps into production, was at least "7 years ago, i.e. before 2001" this:

"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"

happened in 2004 through 2007.

Finally, if this guy has all this debt in his companies, he will have NOL (net operating losses) up the ying-yang for the next 25 years. He shouldn't make a profit and if he does make a profit, he could hire someone, and give them health insurance which in both cases is tax-deductible! so that he doesn't get a profit. No profit = no taxes. In fact, since his new business is a start up, he would actually, under Obama's plan get to pay no capital gain on new equipment he might buy, you know that "production machine" in his 4th business.

Anonymous said...

sounds to me like this another case of "Joe the Plumber" and it all will come to the surface and the truth will be exposed

MrDuncan said...

If he really is wealthy, but has his money tied up in businesses with loans and isn't drawing profit, and therefore not paying taxes, perhaps he wanted a McCain presidency where he could find the most minimum tax burden possible for when he starts cashing out of those businesses. The rest of us? Well, we just have to pay our income taxes, and can't hide the income in reinvestment until it suits us.

Sorry, dude, but your timing sucks.

Unknown said...

I think Michael Geffrard is one best example of starting a business. He's the a former deputy city comptroller in New York. After his former career in the government, he established his own investment banking company which provides assistance to small and big business owners. Anyone could start his own business, and be his own boss. It only takes great gut to do that! Good luck to everyone.

 
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