Republicans are repeating disastrous mistakes

In the 1920’s Republican politicians sided with wealthy individuals and corporations by focusing on conservative business policies, prioritizing deregulation, isolationism, and tax cuts for the rich.  

In 1929, the stock market crashed and unregulated banks collapsed, which brought on the Great Depression. Unemployment accelerated to 15 million people in 1933. Additionally, because of the 1934 Great Plains drought, farms collapsed with 10,000 farmers a month leaving their farms, increasing our unemployment crisis.

Republican politicians were not focused on the average citizen. They concentrated on protectionism, expecting the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act to somehow fix things.  Other countries retaliated.  From 1929 to 1932, U.S. imports from Germany fell $181 million; U.S. exports to Germany fell $277 million.  

Protectionism pulled down other democratic governments, which facilitated the rise of dictatorships in Italy, Germany, and other countries. Those governments did not look at how to lift up the average worker and his or her family. Instead, they scapegoated religious, ethnic, and political minorities, blaming them for their country’s crises.  Global panic and blame of the other laid the groundwork for World War II.

Today, Republican politicians are repeating the mistakes of their counterparts in the 1920s and 1930s. Their political focus is:

• Making sure that the wealthy avoid paying their fair share of income taxes.

• Opposing strong campaign finance laws that would reduce or eliminate the ability of wealthy individuals and corporations to use large, secret donations to sway elections

• Blocking legislative efforts to expand affordable healthcare for all citizens

• Doing nothing to help states create more affordable housing

• Undermining labor unions by promoting anti-union practices and opposing fair bargaining

• Opposing efforts to reduce the cost of college or trade school for all Americans

• Supporting Donald Trump’s misguided and counterproductive tariff program

• Scapegoating immigrants and unfairly blaming them for America’s problems

• Supporting the president’s use of the military to recklessly attack one nation after another, raising the possibility of precipitating World War III

  
  

Please contact your Senators and Representatives today and urge them to stop our government from spreading hatred, blaming immigrants for our current problems, and recklessly attacking other nations. Instead, encourage them to focus on improving the lives of all Americans by:

• Creating a more equitable tax system, in which the top marginal tax rate is raised, capital gains are taxed as ordinary income, inheritance taxes are increased, and middle-income tax rates are reduced.

• Passing strong campaign finance laws

• Expanding affordable health care for all

• Implementing policies to create more affordable housing

• Strengthening labor unions

• Reducing the cost of colleges and trade schools

• Eliminating destructive tariff programs and taking back the power of Congress to debate and implement constructive tariff policies.

We have the power to save our democracy but we need to act now before it's too late.

Kenneth Peterson

MAJ U.S. Army (Ret.)

Buchanan