Regarding your recent comments on the stimulus bill, your characterization of the “chattering class” and “little porky amendments” leaves me deeply offended, because I am part of that class.

In 1951, in my junior year at college, I left to join the Navy to fly an anti-submarine patrol bomber in defense of my country. After the service, I returned to school to complete my BA. After twenty years in the mechanical construction business, I started my own firm. After growing the business from zero to $50 million in annual volume, I sold the business in 2000. I had instituted an ESOP from which the salaried employees received a payout of a third of the sale value of the firm, unlike ENRON and others.

Over the years, I have paid Federal and state taxes aggregating well into seven figures willingly (and “patriotically” as Vice President Biden would say).

Now, I am retired and attempting to live on the money I have invested during my working career, along with social security, for which I have paid much more than the maximum for forty quarters.

I have taken an enormous hit in the value of my investments and the increased cost of medical coverage and medications. I don’t receive the benefits that Federal legislators do after only one term in office. You all should be part of the same Social Security system that I “enjoy.”

I urge you and your colleagues to remove all those little porky amendments in the stimulus bill, and spend very carefully the money that we taxpayers have entrusted to your care and diligence. My grandchildren and their children rely on the prudent expenditure of the funds that taxpayers provide to the Federal and State governments.

Sincerely,

Don McKay