How did the U.S. get in this mess

To the editor:
The N.H. Opinions article by Mark Fernald regarding who’s responsible for the federal deficit (“Who’s to blame for the federal deficit?” Nov. 5-18 NHBR), comes at a time when I was pondering the even larger issue: Why are we, as a nation, in the fix we find ourselves?In 1945, the U.S. was the premier nation in the world. We were the reigning military, economic, industrial, financial and social country in the world. All free societies looked up to us.Since then, over the past 65 years, we have lost most of that advantage. We are forced to buy most of our oil from nations that hate us, trade for consumer and industrial goods with nations that dislike us or that are ambivalent at best, and we are a debtor nation.The responsibility for our fix can be laid at the collective feet of all the government officials that have guided our nation since 1945. The sum total of their judgments have put us where we find ourselves today.Do I have a solution to the problem? No, I don’t, but they say that recognizing a problem is the first step to solving it.Donald Bradley
Plainfield