Dear Joe

I want to share the following letter I wrote to The Honorable Senator Joe Liebermann on October 10, 2009. I am sharing this for one specific reason - To answer those who say folks like me said nothing when the former administration was spending money like "a drunken sailor on leave." This is not true. We did.

As background, I was returning to St. Louis from Washington, D.C. Senator Liebermann was traveling to St. Louis for the Vice-Presidential Debates and was on the same flight. He was traveling in coach (take note Rep. Pelosi) and refused the flight attendant's offer to upgrade him to first class. This made him "First Class" in my book.

I felt compelled to share "one man's views" of the Bush Administration's plan to bail out Freddie, Fannie, various Wall Street firms and the banks. I typed the below letter on my laptop (for spell check reasons - yes, I am a very poor speller) then hand wrote it on a legal pad. I then left the following on his tray table while he was napping.

As we were disembarking from the plane, while holding up the letter, Senator Liebermann asked me if I was the one who "left this" on the tray table. I said, "Yes." He acknowledged with "Thanks, I hear what you and a lot of others like you are saying."

In the gate waiting area this picture was taken (Thanks goes to Candy Crowley of CNN). I am the one with the "I don't know how to act around a Senator" look - on the left...

Senator Liebermann:

I am writing this short note out of respect for your time and privacy during your flight to St. Louis. I must admit I was in a bit in awe when I looked up and saw you standing in the aisle. It is not every day I have the privilege of meeting a United States Senator.

The message I want to convey is the following:

• I am a husband of a nurse, father of three, Navy veteran and a small business owner providing consulting services to the transportation industry. My wife and my combined average income for the last 5 years was less than $95,000.00.
• My in-laws are in their 80’s as is my mother – who taught high school for 40 years. They rely on their retirement savings and investments enabling them to live on their own in, each in the houses that my wife and I grew up in respectively.
• Our oldest 2 sons are college graduates – one a high school teacher in Fairfax, VA; the other a film production major looking for work. We continue to pay the loans for their education totaling $150,000.00. Our daughter is a freshman in college and we directly pay for this currently - no loans. She had to decline attending her 1st choice for college – lack of funding sources.
• We own a modest home, on time with our mortgage, built 50% equity.
• We save via our IRA’s & her 401K plan.
• When I file my quarterly taxes, I generally write a check, a few thousand dollars.
• My wife and I love our family, our work, our country. We feel we have done the right things to provide for our children and our parents. However, we feel our government is now punishing us for doing the “right thing”, meeting our responsibilities, honoring our commitments and rewarding those who don’t.
• My message – my plea is simple, stop punishing those who are responsible citizens, who honor their commitments, pay their bills, who employ people, who do the “right thing”.
• My message – my family cannot afford a tax increase to pay for any bail-out legislation, our parents cannot afford a capital gains tax increase to pay for any bail-out legislation. We are running a “$0 balanced budget” now. We have nothing extra.

Thank you for your service to our great nation. Thank you for putting principle over party.

Best regards,

Jim Taylor

So, there you have it. A plea to a Senator to "stop the madness" and let those who sowed the seeds of greed, fail. But it was not to be. Now we, and our children, and their children, and their children are saddled with a national debt and deficit that is immoral, enslaving, just plain wrong. More on this latter and thanks for reading!

JWT from the Right Side of Mid-America