OPINION:
Taking into account of all the cataclysmic challenges that FDR and Churchill faced separately and together makes today’s challenges and missteps seem almost farcical.
They managed the Great Depression, were victorious during those perilous years of World War II with Europe and the rest of the world in flames and handled the aftermath with unprecedented generosity and competence. That was indeed our finest hour. In those days, captains of industry like Henry Ford put aside their personal ambitions for the good of the country.
Our current national downturn has taken about 50 years, so most of our citizens have no memory of what things were like before. There is massive confusion and disagreement as to the cause of our national decline. Supply-side billionaires argue there is no problem, even with rampant homelessness.
Our current situation of having deliberately relinquished our productivity while depending upon, enriching and building up our philosophical adversaries by outsourcing American manufacturing is creating a stupendous national debt. This protracted scenario seems to have been originally conceived as a Cold War espionage strategy. At best, it is a failed experiment.
There is a mood in our nation’s capital to investigate subversion and threats to our democratic republic. What can be more important than determining the rationale for our economic survival and resolving the uncertainty and misinformation attributed to this divisive issue?
Why shouldn’t the legacy of Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, who sold us the supply-side trade and economic policy, get the onus for this failed gamble on our future?
LOUIS L. BOEHM
Orchard Park, New York
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