The following appeared in an e-mail thread addressed to the Gateway Grassroots Initiative early this morning. It was written by Jim Kruta, friend of The Dana Show, and a fourth generation baker and small business owner:
So, this morning was a salient example of why my father [the owner of a small family bakery] dislikes this Administration, especially after this weekend’s speech.
While we were working on other things, our donut fryer caught fire (nothing serious, sort of). Apparently a bad welding job from a couple years ago caused shortening to drip into the heating jets, thereby causing a nice little self sustaining fire.
Dad and I just kind of looked at each other with a “now what” expression. Dad tried smothering it with towels, but after the towels nearly caught fire, he broke down and pulled out the fire extinguisher.
At first, dad was resigned to the idea of scrapping every single donut for the day (which he had already cut out). So not only would we lose all that labor, we’d essentially lose our entire day’s profit, and that is not taking into account having to fix something we had already paid to fix.
Where was the government? Where were the roads, teachers, whatever that the President chided us about?
The reality of the situation is, it is the small business owner that takes all the risk. If it costs you nothing, or if there is absolutely no risk, can you really take credit for “helping” someone?
My dad and I had to decide if we were going to try to re-light the fryer and basically pray it didn’t flash over in my face while frying donuts. That, or watch the entire day go straight to hell.
*We* pay the price of failure, but the government loses nothing. If we succeed, the government gets to take half. Why? Because they built some damn roads with *our* tax money? Because they hired some teachers I never saw [having attended private school], with *our* tax money? The hell you say! Where’s the risk? Where’s the sacrifice?
The government risks *nothing* because any and every investment they make *we* pay for. When Solyndra fails, no one in the government loses, The People do.
The small businessman risks his savings, his house, his livelihood, his health, and sometimes his life, and when he actually succeeds (through hard work, massive hours, and pain) the government takes half or more after risking *nothing*.
So yes, Mr. President, we did it on our own and you can basically screw off.
p.s. we fried the donuts. #customerservice
