You don’t have the time to rationally argue against my comments, but you’re convinced it’s people like me that have completely ruined the country.

I think your priorities are a little skewed.

It’s fairly obvious you have read absolutely nothing about the people that were unable to get out of New Orleans prior to Katrina (probably because you have no sympathy for them, because “they’re lazy folks”). You also have undoubtedly done precisely zero research into disaster response… in this country, or any other.

Oh, and if you think you can walk outside the area of affect of a hurricane in two days while carrying your entire supply on your back, you are quite frankly an astonishing freak of nature, a professional outdoorsman, or a fool.

God forbid it should ever come to pass that you or yours should be stricken by such misfortune as to be affected by fire, flood, or earthquake… but if it should come to pass, I hope in your supreme confidence and competence you will remember your statement here and hold fast to your strong principles of self-reliance. Turn down emergency medical aid. Refuse your small business loan that comes from a government subsidy, or the FEMA loan to rebuild your house.

But before you do that, you may want to sit down and think of all of the times in your life when you’ve been impacted by the good things your government has done for you. Your subsidized food supply. Your cheap gas and air fare. The development of the network that you are currently enjoying to comment on this blog, which you would not have seen without DARPA. Your (relatively) safe water supply. Herd immunity due to subsidized immunizations that make 90% of the infectious diseases that are common in the majority of the rest of the world basically unknown here. Your power grid that (in spite of its disgusting age) gives more reliable power than anywhere else in the world… other than those other European socialist nations Cory bemoans in his top post. A governmental system that has allowed for more than 40 transfers of power with only one civil war.

> All the liberal agenda is going to do in the
> enbd is create two classes of people, the
> elite and the peasants.

You are inconsistent, my good man. If this is true, combined with your previous statement that you don’t care about lazy folk who just live to collect a government check, I fail to see why you’re not all on board with the liberal agenda. I would think you would be all about having elites and peasants, they’re just the “lazy folk”, right?

> Amazing how higher business taxes always,
> ALWAYS, causes a rise in inflation.

Higher taxes are indeed correlated with a rise in inflation. That’s extremely basic economics. However, Reagan-era tax rates are hardly burdensome on the economy. Moreover, the money we pay in taxes doesn’t exactly vanish into the air. The government doesn’t just collect a big pile of taxes and jump in the pile like some Disney cartoon character. That money gets turned around and spent. It goes back into the economy. Certainly there are many reasons to keep taxes as low as possible, this is undeniable. However, when we have a 400 billion dollar hole in our government balance sheet and an outstanding debt of several trillion dollars (might I add, nearly 80% of which is the direct result of the “conservative” Bush Administration’s spending policies), it is plainly obvious that our tax rate must be adjusted accordingly. We cannot simply “cut” our way out of our current budgetary problems.

Unless of course you’re going to suggest that we immediately halt all war spending and cut the U.S. military budget by two thirds… or cut out quite a large number of domestic spending plans that are desperately needed to fix our roads, bridges, national power grid, air traffic control system… I could go on (all of which, by the way, create jobs, add money to the economy, increase the overall standard of living, etc.) I welcome your plan to cut $400 billion from the budget, but I would very much like to see where you’d be taking it from. (By the way, before you blithely suggest “cutting social security” keep in mind that the out-pay for Social Security is currently offset by payroll taxes with a $300 billion dollar surplus to the operating budget, so if you want to “get rid of Social Security” we actually have a $700 billion dollar hole to plug).

> Yes, Corey will have to raise prices to
> offset the higher taxes. As a result, he
> becomes less competitive in the world.

On the contrary, the description of Cory’s business model leads me to believe that higher taxes has absolutely no effect on his competitiveness in his given market. Cory runs a service oriented business that cannot be outsourced to China. Any of Cory’s competitors will be facing the same tax increase that he is, and will be passing that cost on to the consumer.

@Pat: Seems you intentionally danced around the classification he gave to those who have no motivation to do anything other than sit on their laze arses and collect a government check. Want another example? How about the Superdome and the Convention Center during Hurricane Katrina. I have no sympathy for these lazy folks. If I knew a major hurricane was bearing down on where I lived and I had no other means of getting up and out, I would have started walking out two days before it hit. I can get a long way on my two feet in two days.

The point is, society is always going to have differing classes of people. Those who take the loberal vestiges hook, line and sinker couldn’t see the forest for the trees. All the liberal agenda is going to do in the enbd is create two classes of people, the elite and the peasants.

Yes, heap more taxes on the rich so they can jack up the prices of their goods so we can pay it for them. Amazing how higher business taxes always, ALWAYS, causes a rise in inflation. So, we won’t have higher taxes taken from our paycheck, we will siomply pay a disproportionate amount of taxes levied against the rich through the cost of goods sold. Yes, Corey will have to raise prices to offset the higher taxes. As a result, he becomes less competitive in the world. Another part of the brilliant recipe for disaster.

You had the will to make a business and apparently the means and knowledge, most Americans don’t have the knowledge or the means to get out of the hell they are born into. I don’t want to see business’s like yours go under or cut back on growth because of bad government policies. I do want to see companies that treat their poverty level employees with disdain forced to pay them a decent wage. I have worked hard for my employers. I have given blood, sweat, and at time tears to my job(s) in an effort to make their company more profitable and successful only to have the golden rule(he who has the gold rules) thrown in my face and my work demeaned. In no way do I think that you are one of those people as I don’t know you, what I mean to show here is that poverty in this country has become a habitual state of being, supported and welcomed by greedy people that only have concern for themselves.

There is much more to the equation of our economy than just politicians dumbing down our educations and pushing our citizens towards full reliance on the government, there is people that have greedily stashed their money away and climbed on the backs of the poor to attain their dreams. To me, if you have to take advantage of lower classes to succeed, then you couldn’t succeed on your own, you’re not self sufficient, you deserve to have some of it taken from you and redistributed to the people, why should a man that has worked hard to get the poor to work harder for him be allowed to retire and enjoy his remaining years if the people that he climbed on and used to get there don’t get the same.

You said “I resent you, Mr. Obama” I resent men that think money is all that matters, men that are convinced that they alone have suffered when they obviously have succeeded. I know poverty, I know how many people are unable to survive in the world, a little bit of donating to some random charity won’t change that, changing government policies to give more to the lower classes won’t change that.

The only thing that can change that is the people, when people stop worrying about how to pay the bills and work together to make a world where the necessities(clean drinking water, untainted well balanced meals, and a place they can go to escape the cold) are available to all. That may sound like socialism, I assure you I am not a socialist, I am a human being, a person, that has been homeless and scratched his way into society with sheer grit and determination, I did it through what I can only explain as luck, because during my journey I have witnessed many good hard working people that fell into a virtual slavery because of people that were more concerned with their own future than their brothers and sisters in humankind. I for one am disgusted with my species as a whole, I hope I never become the kind of person that complains at helping his common man, or grumbles when the poor have a better chance. The American dream is far from dead, it’s alive and kicking, though it would seem it’s locked in a room powering the gears of our country by endlessly chasing a golden carrot on a string.

I truly hope your business succeeds(and in reality unless you’re a complete idiot at finances, it will). More than I am concerned with small business’s I hope humanity learns what it’s like to be humane to it’s own kind, instead of fighting over gold(a worthless piece of metal which is only truly good for it’s conductive properties and not eating) we learn to share what we have with the people that are unable(not unwilling) to provide it for themselves.

> 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.

Joe misrepresented his income and his current plans, and then quite willingly road a wave of media hysteria that resulted in the obvious investigation into his private life. He wasn’t persecuted. He was investigated. And given how he obviously relished the media attention and attempted to launch his own political career through it, it’s disingenuous to claim altruism on his part.

> 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.

Good on you for knowing what you wanted to do and pursuing it. Sucks that you can’t give the same credit to people who chose the path of higher education.

> I started my own water well drilling business…
> … 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.

The fact that you had a family support network to provide you startup capital and available hard goods to pawn to acquire more startup capital indicates that you’re conveniently overlooking a huge privilege of base support that is currently not available to a staggeringly high percentage of the population.

Oh, and just as an aside, keep in mind that the following multiple paragraphs describing (what is admittedly a damn hard time) getting a business up and running all would have been several orders of magnitude easier with a tax code that *supported the middle and lower class*, which the author was clearly a part of when he started out.

> 2. 5 years later I made a business loan for
> $100,000.00 to build a new, higher production,
> computer controlled screen service machine.

> 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.

Hm. I might be mistaken, but if I’m doing my math correctly and understanding his timeline properly, at least the second of these two loans and possibly both came about during the Clinton Administration. A small business loan that he probably could find due to the Small Business Lending Enhancement Act, or some other government subsidized loan program.

So much for “without asking for any government assistance”.

> 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.

Any reasonable analysis of the current fiscal crisis is bipartisan in the blamethrowing.

> 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.

While I can empathize, clearly this is a false comparison. Those “unrealistically low interest rates” were reflected through the entire banking program, including small business loans. If you were unable to qualify for those loans due to a capital/debt ratio or overall business value, and chose as a business decision to finance an expansion on *22% interest credit cards* this was clearly your business decision to make.

> 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.

Again, the current economic crisis is obviously bipartisan in creation. Also, your choice to continue to grow your business at the expense of your retirement planning was clearly your decision, sir. At any time during the last 25 years you could have delayed your business expansion in order to more invest more in a retirement portfolio. By the way, it sounds like you can have a pretty smooth retirement just by selling off the companies you own.

> 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.

While I congratulate you on your efforts and hard work, I imagine that a huge proportion of the middle-class people you essentially just accused of being lazy, cowardly, laid-back pacifists would take this paragraph as a mortal insult.

> 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.

No, sir, you infer that. And note, for a high percentage of people in your income bracket, this characterization is in fact true… in fact, a much higher percentage relatively than the lower income bracket people “entitlement culture” people are in comparison to hardworking middle and lower class workers.

> 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.

At this point I’m starting to lose the sympathy I had for you, Cory, and I’m generally starting to think that you have a bedrock liberal conspiracy nuttiness to you as equal to the bedrock conservative moral majority conspiracy nuttiness we see on the left.

> 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.

Actually, in large proportion, they fail. They are rescued by family networks, friends, and… government assistance (as you undoubtedly have been multiple times in your career, if you would be honest enough to admit). Then they pick themselves up and try again.

The difference is that you have obviously conveniently forgotten the various assistances you’ve had through your career, and/or seem to just blithely assume other people have it as well. You’re also conveniently ignoring a large population of people who (most commonly due to medical bills – 50% of bankruptcies) simply cannot elevate themselves. If you owe more money than you can possibly earn in your career lifetime, you’re screwed.

Guess what, Cory? Only ~40% of small businesses are profitable. (http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/news/coladvic … While we certainly ought to applaud those that make the grade, they don’t all fail because their owners don’t believe in self-reliance, personal achievement, or personal betterment. Sometimes they just fail because life doesn’t always go your way.

> 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.

Oh, you mean, people who won’t put their 10 year old to work at their company? People who will constantly put themselves at a risk for bankruptcy, multiple times during their career? What exactly is your standard for “hard work”, Cory? Let’s not fish around, here.

> 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 goggle?). Tell
> me again how you feel my pain.

Well, I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure that both Senators Obama and Biden (funny how Cory doesn’t ever talk about politicians on the other side of the aisle except in the abstract) would both be making considerably more in the private sector than they’re making as government employees. If you’re busting your ass off every day working for political causes, you’re probably actually delivering more to worthy causes on a daily basis than any private citizen is by donating his own funds.

Keep pitching and supporting Conservatives.

That being said, you and your business were unqualified when you took out $150,000 worth of credit card debt, which is no worse than someone that takes out $150,000 to buy a house. The difference is, had you defaulted, there likely would have been nothing of value for your debtors to repossess.

Now, that being said, ALL of us need to pay a LOT more taxes now, because Bush ran up a LOT LOT LOT of debt. Something like $10 trillion dollars in debt. The only thing I would say is that Bush policies represented a MASSIVE shift in wealth from the lower and middle classes to the upper classes. It is time for those people to pay off the debt that helped get them rich. But, even the lower and middle class need to take on their share of the burden – I don’t support any handouts.