Medicare history

In response to Diane Peterson’s Friday letter regarding the early years of Medicare and the Great Society. What people forget is that the Great Society and its largest component, Medicare, were conceived and founded within the context of the great post-war prosperity of the mid-1960s.

Unemployment and inflation were low and everything we bought had “Made in the U.S.A.” on it. It was expected this scenario would continue and that there would be enough wealth available to solve every problem of human existence via the federal government.

We know now that initial skepticism regarding Medicare was well-founded. In short order it tremendously exceeded the estimates of its costs and has never conformed to any projection made for it.

Within a decade, the country was in the depths of a deep recession. A combination of high inflation, high unemployment and economic stagnation that lasted a decade effectively ended post-war prosperity forever. Although the economy rebounded in the 1980s and 1990s, it would never recover to match the same level of productivity or job security that existed before the 1970s.

This changed people’s perspectives from one of investment to short-term speculation and created financial bubbles, and increased use of credit in order to finance purchases. The latest crash began in 2006 as we entered a recession worse than that in the 1970s.

To propose a huge federal program within the context of the current economic climate seems, in a word, preposterous.

Edward Mitchell

Waco

Bring troops home

If neither the British nor Russian troops could conquer Afghanistan, why should we expect the U.S. military to do it? What is the reason for our troops being in Afghanistan in the first place? Whose oil or gas pipelines are we protecting?

No more war, not in Afghanistan, not in Iraq and certainly not in Iran. We have no need for war with Yemen, Pakistan or Africa. None of the countries we have attacked in the last 50 years has had the interest nor the capability to attack this country.

It is time to call a halt to all the destruction this country has caused around the world. Bring the troops home, employ them in rebuilding the infrastructure of this country to the end of their enlistments, then send them home. Surely anything would be better than sending our young people to foreign countries to destroy that country and their lives.

Sara Haney

Waco

What Waco traffic?

I hear people gripe about living in Waco and I must admit that at times I have also. But it doesn’t take long to remind myself that the positives of living here far outweigh any negatives.

Last week my wife took our daughter to a medical appointment in Houston. They left at 4 p.m. to return to Waco, but it took them two hours of sitting in traffic just to make it to the Houston suburbs.

Every time we get in big- city traffic it reminds us of how great it is to live in Waco. Waco is a great place to raise a family — and just think of all the time gained by not sitting in traffic!

Kevin Krause

Waco