Letter to the editor: Looking at Trump's accomplishments

Thanks to letter-writer Robert Szypulski for his compilation of Trump “deliverances” (“Thank you, President Trump”). Now to cases in no particular order of importance as space permits:

• “Preserving 180 million employer health plans”: I didn’t know that they were endangered really, but I do know his administration is busily trying to destroy the ACA with its coverage of 20 million insured and guarantees on covering preexisting conditions with bupkis to replace it.

• “Tax cut across all brackets”: Well, some brackets got much better of that deal. Up to 85% of the “cut” went to top brackets and corporations (mostly owned by, you guessed it, top-bracket taxpayers). The impact of the “cut” was to ensure $1 trillion-plus budget deficits in the “best economy ever” as far as could be seen into the future (to be paid for by our lower-bracket descendants).

• “Decimating ISIS”: This project, begun under President Obama, was really carried out by our Kurdish allies, who did most of the hard fighting on the ground resulting in an estimated 11,000 Kurdish dead (more than the U.S. losses in Iraq and Afghanistan combined by nearly 50%). It was Trump who promptly dumped the Kurds once ISIS was subdued.

• “U.S. energy independence”: Trump did not invent or perfect the fracking techniques that resulted in the surge of oil and gas production in this country; that shift was well underway in the Obama administration before his presidency.

The truth takes longer to express than Szypulski’s shorthand list — more next time.

James Kvitkovich

Hempfield