To the Editor:

Recently, President Obama commented about successful business people: “You didn’t build that … somebody else put that in place.” I must ask: Where does the government gets its funding for infrastructure?

I grew up in a small familyowned business. My mother, who grew up through the Great Depression and learned the art of wheeling and dealing from her father, was the brains of the outfit, knocking herself out for 35 years to successfully build Riverside Furniture in Bath’s south end. My father, a full-time shipfitter at Bath Iron Works — as well as my brother and I, throughout out school years and beyond — worked days, nights and weekends providing the muscle.

Mother must have been smarter than and worked harder than other business people whose businesses quickly came and went during the same period. She started out selling Stanley Home Products and used that money to buy junk furniture to start, and worked her way up to handling a fine line of benchmade furniture. Mother was well known for helping people out; selling them a room full of furniture then allowing them to trade that furniture for newer and better later. At 4 feet 11 inches, mother was a real dynamo, picking up one end of a couch and placing it on a dolly then moving it, well into her 70s, before we lost her to Alzheimer’s.

To obtain infrastructure to move merchandise, mother paid her taxes. If there were no need for infrastructure, would the government have put it in place? Therefore, the free enterprise system builds the need and supplies the funds for infrastructure.

Yes, Mr. President, we really did build it, lock, stock and barrel.

Dave Ricker
Wiscasset