Of the last six presidents, only one president did a good job!

The president I am referring to is Ronald Reagan. Yes, I know the staunch union people will not agree with me. My cousin, who was an air traffic controller in Indianapolis but had retired in 1980, said the air traffic controllers fired themselves, because in their contract it said they could not go out on strike, but they did so anyway thinking they could tell our new president what to do. But he did give them a choice, either you go back to work or get fired. They refused to go back to work, and therefore they were fired.

President Reagan broke up the Soviet Union by insisting that Berlin Wall come down. He did this by building up the U.S. military.

President Jimmy Carter had the economy in such a mess with the high (20 percent) interest rates, and that is why Ronald Reagan won by such a landslide. President George H. W. Bush while campaigning for his second term, made a mistake, by saying, “Read my lips, no new taxes,” but raised taxes anyway. He perhaps would have won a second term, but a third party led by Ross Perot came in and took about 20 percent of the votes, so that opened the door for Bill Clinton. He was president for two terms. President George W. Bush served two terms in office, and we know he made mistakes, but so did the rest of them, other than Reagan.

President Barack Obama has made his share of mistakes. Unemployment is 8.2 percent. He is so worried about the rich people not paying their fair share of taxes, small businesses will not have a chance to survive as they will be overtaxed. He wants to cut the defense budget, so there will be no money for veterans and no money to defend the United States of America, if that happens. Our jobs having been going out of the country, to China, India and Mexico, to name a few of these countries, because our workforce will not work for a lesser wage. The unions insist on having big raises when contracts come due.

Employers cannot compete in the marketplace because of the competition overseas. (I belonged to a union for more than 30 years. Because I worked for union factories, I did not agree with them using our union dues to back the candidates of the union leaders’ choices.)

Obama thinks green energy. He wants only to use solar and wind. We have plenty of coal and oil if we could drill and have natural gas. When I left South Korea in April of 1954, little did I know that the only problem we had with defending ourselves was communism, and a few years later I found out that bad people were invading the United States, infiltrating our government and armed forces.

A radical Muslim killed 12 people in Fort Hood, Texas, and wounded over 20. It seems our veterans that do so much for our country are not even safe on our military grounds. Seems as justice is not served to the highest level when crimes are committed.

A half million soldiers died in World War II, plus 36,000 in Korea, and the wars since that are fighting for us to have freedom. But several people don’t seem to care or understand as we are continuing to get bad leaders. Our religious freedom is being threatened by the American Civil Liberties Union. President Obama doesn’t like our capitalism government and is trying to push us to socialism, which is the next thing to communism.

Duane Hatleli

Albert Lea