Growing up in rural West Virginia, I did not think a lot about going into business for myself. I enjoyed working for others. I watched owners of companies in their struggles and success throughout the years and more than once thanked God I did not have to go through the pangs of a birth or death of a business. It is not an easy thing to watch a man lose everything he has in a business. Just like a funeral you pick your words very carefully and even then sometimes your best is not good enough. I have seen men, who one day were living large and in what seemed like only days were down to their last penny and ready to go on welfare.  

I worked for such a man once. He had a couple of businesses that were doing pretty good, but personally he had made some bad investments and had lost just about everything of a personnel nature. I remember going to Chicago with this man to obtain a loan to build a multipurpose building right on the waterfront in Chicago. It was to be a very large project and he was making a last ditch effort to obtain a loan to start the project. 

At the time we went to Chicago this man was in some dire straits. The phone company had cut off his home phone, and to pay for this trip he had cashed in some savings he had put in his children’s names for their future education. When we got to Chicago the man found as we were trying to get into our hotel that his credit cards were maxed and so I had to pay for the rooms and spring for any meals and entertainment that would be taking place. We stayed for three days and when we went in for the signing of the papers, I had two things going through my mind. While I knew that on paper the building looked like a very good deal, I was afraid if the bank knew what I knew they would laugh us out of the office and out of town.

The one thing this man had in his favor was, like Donald Trump, he had made some great deals in his time and his history for repaying loans were spot on. We signed the papers that day and after shaking hands all around the bank took us to lunch and we left town with the first check, neither of us spoke for almost an hour. To make a long story short, the building was built and it was filled up in the first year and is now a successful business venture. 

The gentleman I speak of is not unique. Men such as that put everything they have on the line to start business and to take on ventures that would make most of us mere citizens shake in out boots just to think of all the things that could happen if things go wrong. Like Donald Trump says “It is not how many times you fall that counts. It is how many times you get up and start over again”. These men know that to keep the economy going and to make their products and services profitable, their dollars must be in circulation and must turn over at least four or five times or business stifles, stands still or dies. 

Our government which is made up of men who have never taken many chances in their life except when they used other peoples money and time are saying we need to start over taxing those people who have put everything they have on the line. Who have made it to the top of the heap and are ready to do it again to get the economy going in this country again if the government will get out of the way and let them.  

These government officials think that the people who have made a success of their lives just sit around counting their money while their wives lay at the pool and eat bon-bons. Nothing could be further from the truth. These people are making new deals and building businesses and employing people that keep companies going on a daily basis. 

To over tax these people who are already paying 85% of the taxes, is to stop them from the successful business practices that keep the taxes flowing to Washington. To over tax them is to actually kill the golden goose.