Rhetoric, not solutions

In 2000 the federal debt was $5.6 trillion. At the end of the Bush administration it was $9.8 trillion. At the end of the Obama administration it was $17.7 trillion. It is now $21.6 trillion and the interest is costing $314 billion.

The 2008 financial meltdown cost Americans and pension funds $11.7 trillion. Many Americans still have not recovered and pension funds are still short $6 trillion.

Research on the internet will provide the information on what Congress and others did starting in the 1990s that caused the problem.

In 2009 I wrote to members of Congress suggesting funding $2 trillion for infrastructure over a four-year period which I thought would jump-start the economy. It never happened. It is still needed but there are no funds.

The 1960s was the beginning of major drug abuse which is now an epidemic. In 2013 Congress passed the DSCSA bill to control the drug supply chain. It will not be fully implemented until 2022. It should have been done in the 1990s.

Wages have been stagnant for years. The middle class has dropped by 11 percent. There is a lack of affordable housing which is causing thousands of homeless.

We do not have affordable health care, proper educational facilities for many, treatment centers for those with addiction or solutions for immigration and other major issues.

35 million people in the world are displaced or refugees, which is the most since World War II.

At election time there is a lot of rhetoric but I do not hear solutions to the major problems.

Bert J. Porter

Spokane Valley