Why conservatives just don’t like Ike

Paul Gwin, Las Vegas

Sunday, Nov. 10, 2013 | 2:01 a.m.

It is high time someone made the conservatives in the Republican Party unlock the door where they hide the secret of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s success. It isn’t hard to figure out why. The guy not only was one of the greatest presidents of all time, he was also one of the (gasp) most liberal and progressive ones.

“Horrors!” the Tea Party Republicans shiver. “We can’t have that word get out; we’ll lose the conservative billionaires’ support and all the perks and payola they give us.”

So here we are, several decades after Eisenhower’s demise, with a voting public that has grown disinterested in what the fool politicians in Washington are doing and harbors a laissez-faire attitude toward politics in general.

Eisenhower’s secret to success was spending huge sums of money — our tax money — on building America into a great nation. We all want this. The conservatives think they can squeeze money out of government services like a lemon and produce money to reduce the nation’s debts. It won’t happen.

Eisenhower’s answer was to invest government money in the country’s infrastructure, an interstate highway system being the prime example. He hired road and bridge building contractors who, in turn, hired skilled equipment operators and put them to work. Employment snowballed, new industries were born: tourism, motels and trucking to mention a few.

Conservatives in the House are destroying the Republican Party and bringing the country’s economy down with them. Those billionaires who support them are only interested in cutting their taxes.

The point of my story is, if you want our nation to recover, vote for a liberal, no matter whether he or she is a Republican, Democrat, Independent or Bull Moose Partyer.