Many Americans (and citizens of foreign countries) are shocked by the recent election of Donald Trump. Except for his ability to wage nuclear war, I believe the most serious consequence is his plan to cut taxes by trillions of dollars over the next few years. Since we already have a national debt of nearly $20 trillion, which is growing by more than $1 billion every day, we should be doing three things to get our financial house back in order: Increase taxes on everyone whose income is above the poverty line; aggressively cut expenses, including the military, and even suspend Social Security payments to those with six-figure incomes; earmark all new income and expense savings to paying down the debt.

The headlines in newspapers around the globe indicate that foreigners are beginning to question the judgement of the American people. Our country’s Republican leaders won’t raise taxes, and our Democratic leaders won’t reduce expenses. That’s because most Americans are not ready to “bite the bullet.” If we don’t, then our foreign creditors will eventually begin to demand hard assets like real estate, to guarantee repayment. This added demand will benefit the owners of large real estate holdings, like Donald Trump, but will hurt most Americans, because interest rates will rise. I’m old enough to remember when the prime rate was about 20 percent in the early 1980s. And history tends to repeat itself.

We should all be concerned that huge tax cuts will accelerate the trend towards the eventual demise of the United States, if we continue to overextend ourselves financially.

Our veterans gave us a physically secure country. Now we need to demand that our leaders make it financially secure, as well.

J.B. POWERS

Port Townsend