[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14710]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                VOICE OF TEXAS: PAM FROM LIBERTY, TEXAS

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I have heard from many Texas business 
owners who built their own business without government help. Here's 
what Pam from Liberty, Texas, has to say:

       We are college educated, taxpaying citizens who have a 
     lifetime of hard work under our belts. We have stayed up 
     nights trying to figure out how we were going to pay our 
     taxes, insurance, employees, and bank notes. We started from 
     scratch, owning convenience stores, car washes, mini storage 
     businesses, a clothing business, and also operated/owned two 
     small-town movie theaters that were built by my husband's 
     grandparents and parents. The latest is a real estate 
     business.
       There's not much that anyone can tell us about the 
     sacrifices that have to be made when you start up your own 
     business. We have done it all, including working full-time 
     jobs for someone else to make ends meet. No government agency 
     has ever helped us with one thing, but the government 
     certainly has made our work harder and more expensive to run/
     operate our businesses.

  Mr. Speaker, people--not the government--make America's businesses 
successful.
  And that's just the way it is.

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