Bert Dirschell
Centertown
Dear Editor:
Why do so many think the Socialism being pushed by the Democrats is so great? It is easy to compare systems by comparing our capitalism to Europe’s Socialism.
Our unemployment rate is 3.7 percent. Unemployment across the EU community is 6.9 percent. Only three EU nations have unemployment rates below ours, one equals ours and 24 EU nations have rates higher than ours. The unemployment rate in seven EU nations is more than double ours. Three of those nations are France, Italy and Spain.
The EU’s GDP has still not recovered to 2008 (pre-recession) levels. Our 2017 GDP was 15 percent greater than our 2008 GDP.
The European Commission is forecasting “strong” GDP growth in 2018 (2.1 percent) and 2019 (2.0 percent). The Congressional Budget Office estimates our 2019 GDP growth at 3.1 percent. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecasts 2019 EU GDP growth at 2.5 percent and U.S. GDP growth at 2.8 percent. With any of these estimates the gap between the EU and the U.S. economies continues to widen.
For those who support increasing social/welfare programs, please tell us why those programs should not be authorized and funded at the state and local level, rather than funding them by piling more debt on our children.