Biden makes the right moves on inflation

The July 20 letter “Improved economy” attributes the decrease in inflation to the fiscal responsibility of the Republican-controlled U.S.

House, suggesting that restrained government spending has lowered inflation rates.

However, the budget for this fiscal year is higher than the last fiscal year. Because the fiscal year ends at the end of September, any budget cuts announced today would not be felt for months. Moreover, a review of federal budgets approved since 2017 shows that the budget increased during the first two years of former President Trump’s term in office (when the House was controlled by a solid Republican majority), while deficits skyrocketed from $665 billion to nearly $1 trillion. This had minimal impact on inflation.

Hiking interest rates to combat inflation, which is what the Biden administration has done, is an economic policy championed by conservative economist Milton Friedman, the darling of the Republican Party since the 1980s. Friedman espoused that federal budget policy is inadequate as a tool to address inflation because the results are unpredictable and carry a built-in lag time.

Conservatives love to criticize the Democratic Party as the “tax and spend” party. I will accept that description happily, because it is far more fiscally responsible than their philosophy of borrowing and spending, and then subsequently balking at paying the bills when they come due.

– David A. Silk, Boca Raton

MOCKING HISTORY

Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. and the rest of his racist African-American History Task Force in Tallahassee have decided that teachers must teach a “new” Black history. According to their newly adopted, perverted history standards, slavery must be taught as if it had personally benefited the enslaved.

What are the personal benefits of being a Black slave in white colonial America? Did slaves benefit from being beaten, chained and lynched? Did slaves benefit from not being allowed to read or write? Did slaves benefit from having bloody, cutup fingers from picking cotton all day? Did slaves benefit by living in overcrowded and dirty shacks? How did slaves benefit from being auctioned and chained like cattle?

Never will I teach my middle school students this sack of lies. Gov. Ron DeSantis and his white supremacist Department of Education will be remembered in our history classes as supporters and enablers of Jim Crow laws. – Mayade Ersoff,

Palmetto Bay

LITMUS TESTS

Re the July 21 story “Ex-owner of South Florida school tied to fake nursing-diploma racket will serve 21 months:” Learning that this massive and potentially dangerous fraud has been cleared up and the perpetrator was fined rather quickly, as things generally go, is gratifying.

I wonder how well the purchasers of diplomas, entitling them to take supposedly rigorous state

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professional certification exams, actually did on those exams.

– Susan Walend, Margate

DISTORTING HISTORY

Florida’s updated African-American history standards for public schools would be laughable if they weren’t so harmful and appalling. The new instruction gaining the most attention (and mockery) is for teachers to explain “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

Another ludicrous amendment regards the framing of Reconstruction-era violence perpetrated against Black communities by armed white mobs (for example, Tulsa in 1921). When discussing these racially motivated attacks, students must be

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made aware of how violence was perpetrated “against and by African Americans.”

What changes will our education board make next? The Trail of Tears was a government endeavor to enhance navigation skills? The Holocaust, an era of scientific advancements? The Rwanda genocide, a boon to the machete industry?

– Catherine Fernandez,

Miami

NOTHING BUT AIR

The media always seem ready to report any claims former President Donald Trump is willing to speak or disseminate.

Why is it that reporters never ask him to provide any evidence or facts to substantiate his “moon-ismade-of-green-cheese” assertions?

– Bruce Shpiner, Miami

DANA BANKER OFFENSIVE TEACHING

Florida has now adopted a curriculum with lessons on how Black slaves learned skills and benefited from slavery. That is active child abuse and institutional racism.

Nearly a million Africans from the Senegambia region were enslaved and forced to work on farms in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. These Africans came from a region known for its skilled farmers. They brought their skills and made America’s farms productive. They labored for many generations to enrich white society while it was illegal for Blacks to accumulate wealth or pass it to the next generation.

An enslaved African who was given as a gift to New England Puritan minister Cotton Mather and was renamed “Onesimus,” introduced the process for the first vaccine, which later saved the lives of hundreds of white people from smallpox in the 1700s. This was a skill he brought from Africa. He did not receive a patent or ownership in the pharmaceutical industry.

During slavery, Black intellectual property was stolen to enrich white society. Today, it is reported that the average white family has 13 times the accumulated wealth as the average Black family. This wealth gap traces directly to slavery, Jim Crow segregation and institutional racism.

– Ozie L. Hall, Jr., Spring Lake, NC

FEARLESS WOMAN

I thank author Karen Stabiner for her July 14 op-ed, “Susan Love changed medical care for breast cancer patients — with resolve and compassion.” Love touched the lives of millions of women throughout the world.

I read that in speaking to her daughter, Love told her to live her life, reflecting that no one knows how much time we have. She also said, “I drink expensive wine now.” What a wonderful, colorful lady.

– Joan Fine, Hollywood

NANCY ANCRUM

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