Not the way to greatness

President Donald Trump, whose medical deferment kept him out of the Vietnam War, recently gave a speech aboard the new aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, docked at Newport News Shipbuilding.

The construction of the ship began Sept. 10, 2008, just as the disastrous fiscal policies of the Bush-Cheney administration were starting a recession that eventually eliminated 8 million middle-class jobs. The ship has already cost almost $13 billion and is two years behind schedule. The ship still has major problems in its advanced weapons systems and is not yet ready for deployment.

Trump’s plan for the future is to eliminate at least 100,000 jobs for American citizens working in regulatory agencies in the federal government. This will allow the rich to get richer at everyone else’s expense by making pollution for profit and financial fraud legal again, but won’t help the middle class.

He plans to use the salaries of all those downsized government workers to “rebuild our depleted military.” This is the same military that already consumes more than $600 billion per year and is the most advanced and powerful military in the history of the world.

How is this going to “make America great again?”

This story was originally published April 17, 2017 at 2:25 PM with the headline "Not the way to greatness."