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France, Spain, Italy – all have higher deaths per capita than the U.S., and are suffering through enormous COVID-19 waves of their own this winter. They also engaged in severe lockdowns, which you seem to think would bring the death toll down overall. The evidence for this is weak. Simply put, you’ve internalized an opportunistic narrative that Trump’s political opponents crafted to beat him in 2020. And it worked. Re: The Exploding Debt Crisis... Happy New Year, Brian Darling’s article, which I appreciate, bemoaning the ever- increasing national debt repeats what various commentators have said for at least 40 years. Sadly, it reminds me of the little boy crying wolf. Might it be true that increasing national debt is not bad? The sky hasn’t fallen, nor does it show any signs of cracking. I simply ask for details explaining why and how the sky, for the past 40 years, has not fallen. Yes, I understand that inflation destroys a currency, including the dollar, but what other specific adverse effects has the enlarged governmental spending “caused” or is really likely to cause? How can taxpayers ever take any meaningful action to counter this spending of our money, most or least much of which goes to the most wealthy of us? No matter whom we elect, the game remains the same. The wealth flows in incredibly amounts to the very top tier and leaves the rest of us behind. Indeed, the 2020 pandemic
situation we are in is because we did not take this virus seriously during the first wave, and your boy Trump provided no leadership and in fact provided negative leadership on the pandemic. He politicized the pandemic like he did with everything else. We are already approaching a death toll that will exceed the number of Americans that died inWorldWar II. What will it take to convince people that life is more important than business? Had we all locked down and taken this seriously from the start, we would not be in the situation we are in. You are an intelligent man and a good writer, but do we really need to fan the flames of political division, or do we need to get past this horror as quickly and safely as we can? – Keith J. Buck Sexton response: Keith, I appreciate you sharing your perspective. Unfortunately, I think you’re wrong on all counts. Blaming Trump for the nation’s virus response is almost entirely a creation of media hype. The overwhelming majority of decision-making in the fight against COVID-19 has been at the state level, and the large Blue states like New York and California have had the most disastrous results. You say Trump provided “no leadership,” but that discounts many things, including his invocation of the defense production act for PPE and ventilators, and “Operation Warp Speed” which created the financial and regulatory framework for the miracle of a vaccine in under a year. As for “taking it seriously,” look at the situation in Europe right now, which I don’t think anyone would ever blame on Trump. The U.K.,
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January 2021
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