Bill O'Reilly and others complain that things are not the way they were in the 1950s. Really?

And now today, they are imagining a world with higher unemployment, a disproportionate tax burden with the rich paying 45 percent, corporate taxes out of control, fewer legal rights, a Justice Department and an FBI held unaccountable, religious or political freedoms persecuted without due process by no less than Congress, and an unfrequented public works/infrastructure improvements program with money siphoned off the defense budget.

Is that 2016 ? Nope. That was the 1950s under President Eisenhower. We have to go a long way to top the interstate highway system, Land Banks, Commodity Credit Corp. and more.

The deficit, of course, is the big difference. President Truman left with it at 72 percent of GDP and Ike followed by dropping it to 60 percent. But Ike did it without tax cuts. Does anyone want to call Ike a communist?

So don't fall down the rabbit hole on that quackery. This has happened over the last 12 years, which is about the same time we tried to have tax cuts and fund wars at the same time. We need to stop trying to assess blame and just get on with fixing it.

Politics equal compromise. Live it. Do it.

Joseph M. Reichert

Belleville