Posted by
John Caile on Friday, October 24, 2008 12:59:19 PM
Tom Wolfe was right when he said "the East and West Coasts are nothing but parenthesis - and between them is the real America." This past week I spent several intentionally leisurely days driving from Minneapolis to San Antonio, stopping in places like Des Moines, Kansas City, and Dallas, as well as numerous towns so small they didn't have stop lights.
As I struck up conversations with many of the folks met, I was struck by the enormous difference between their view of life and the views expressed by the "talking heads" who inhabit the mainstream newsrooms of America. Unlike the journalist class, these people seemed to take joy in the simple reality of everyday life. I heard none of the pessimism and doom-and-gloom so prevalent in "coastal America." Except when it came to one subject:
Taxes.
Because these are people who work - hard. In town after town I began to count the amazing number of small businesses. Car repair shops and tire dealers. Small local restaurants and antique stores. Locksmiths and gun stores. Insurance agencies. Little motels and bed-and-breakfasts. Electrical contractors, roofing companies, and yes, plumbers.
I realized how most of us really haven't thought much about the immense impact of small businesses on our economy, not to mention on our daily lives. These people really are the backbone of America. They've put their savings, their time, and (literally) the sweat off their brows into building something useful and productive.
I saw no one who would fit the oft expressed liberal view of such people as merely "lucky" or "winning life's lottery." On the contrary, these were just ordinary folks, but with an extraordinary drive and ambition to build a better life for themselves and their families.
And they are worried. Unlike the average American who may be seduced by false political promises of "taxing only those rich guys" these people understand what it takes to run a business - and what it takes to destroy one. They fully comprehend the impact that even a modest tax increase will have on their livelihood, and their lives.
When I bring up Senator Obama's "Joe the Plumber" gaffe, they roll their eyes, shake their heads, and sometimes, just shift their feet and look at the ground. "How will Obama's tax plan affect you?" I ask.
The answers run from a simple "It'll hurt, no doubt about it" to a more specific "I just put on two apprentices - one will probably have to go. They're both nice kids, but I won't have a choice." A woman who owns a (very) small motel in Oklahoma just shook her head and asked me "Why do they always want to keep taking from folks like me who never ask anything from the government? Why can't they just leave us alone?"
I had an answer, of course, but I kept it to myself. Yet I couldn't help feeling a sense of anger at the mealy-mouthed politicos who have never actually talked to a small business owner in their lives.
Not that it would likely make any difference - they simply don't care about these entrepreneurs who truly do represent the best of the "real America." That's because, for Obama and his like-thinking liberal do-gooders, wealth is not something that individuals create - it is something for government to "hand out." Never mind that in order to "spread the wealth around" they must first take it at gun-point from decent, hard working people who simply want to be left alone.
Sadly, if the neo-socialist thugs get their way, our grandchildren may only learn about the Real America from books - provided, that is, they can get permission from the "Fairness Bureau" to read them...
