Equal time for FDR on the dime

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I read with much amusement Mr. Buckman’s op-ed regarding the face of FDR on the American dime. America HAS a great leader on its dime! Trying to equate Jayson Blair with a Pulitzer Prize and Joe Namath as head of NOW in the same breath with the minted image of FDR on the dime is conservative jabberwocky. There couldn’t be a more deserving American to be so honored on U.S. currency. My grandfathers never knew much prosperity growing up and later trying to raise sizeable families in poverty stricking Southeastern Kentucky. What jobs and prospertiy they did have were thanks to Democrats like FDR and Harry Truman. Many of the New Deal programs DID give jobs to many Americans who were out of work despite the fact that unemployment may have increased in FDR’s second term. What about employment in his third term Mr. Buckman? I believe many of great projects such as Grand Coulee Dam and Tennesse Valley Authority resulted from U.S. Government policies brought about by FDR. Many of the trails Mr. Buckman may have enjoyed in our national parks were probably cleared by workers of the WPA and CCC…..thanks to the vision of FDR. Can you imagine where we’d be today if Hoover had been re-elected or if Tom Dewey or Wendell Wilke had been elected President? And yes FDR stacked the supreme court just like Ronald Reagan did in order to promulgate his conservative agenda. That’s what Presidents do as soon as there’s a vacancy in any federal court. Reagan was a B actor and he was a C-minus president in my opinion. I might hazard a guess that Mr. Buckman was a babe in swaddling clothes during the early years of Reagan’s first administration. Reagan’s tax cuts and policies brought about the largest government deficits in history at that time. Now our current Republican president with his tax cuts and government policies have brought even larger budget deficits. And over 2 million jobs have been lost since January 2001. This has followed the largest surplus and the longest period of continual economic growth in our nation’s history brought about by U.S. government policies set forth by the the Clnton Administration. Bill Clinton……another Democrat. You just can’t beat those Democrat’s down Mr. Buckman, no matter how hard you try. Yes, Reagan did help to bring about the decline and fall of “the evil empire”; however, this came about through consistent U.S. government policy by the administrations of Harry Truman (and probably back to FDR) to George Herbert Walker Bush. And sometimes it is necessary to team with evil to fight evil. If it hadn’t been with the help of our major Allies, the Soviet Union and Great Britain, we might be having German promoted in our schools as a second language……..sprechen sie Deutch Mr. Buckman? If memory serves me, the U.S. government under Ronald Reagan helped arm Sadaam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. Look where that has gotten us today! And I’m not going to bother talking about the Iran-Contra Affair. FDR’s profile was minted on the obverse of the dime with the approval of a Democratic controlled Congress in the mid 1960s. I remember beacuse I am a former numismatist. His profile replaced that of Lady Liberty. So if the current Republican controlled Congress wants to place a Republican on the dime why not put someone more deserving than Ronald Reagan such as the great visionary Teddy Roosevelt. He more than anyone helped begin the 20th century as the American Century. Reagan already has at least one airport, an aircraft carrier and possibly a federal building and a few elementary schools named after him………that’s enough. I couldn’t stomach to see him on the dime. So for all your conservative dribble Mr. Buckman there’s already a deserving American president on the dime. I have one that says so!

James T. Engle, Jr.

110 Pine Land Lane

Brandenburg, KY 40108-9137

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