To the Editor:

I remember not so long ago when I could have a civil discussion with a friend who was a Republican. I did not think George Bush was the sharpest pencil in the box and my friend was sure Obama was totally unprepared to be President. We argued about deficits, how to fix health care, free trade and immigration. We were talking in a common language, and the facts were still the facts. My friend had good reasons for his  positions. 

Today when I question the reasons for an exploding deficit I get no such response. Where are the Republicans who for eight years attacked President Obama because of rising deficits? They correctly argued that the increasing interest bill on our deficit will have to be paid by our children. Apparently that no longer matters. 

Back in the day, before the Affordable Care Act  (ACA), everyone agreed that the old system was badly broken and something had to be done. We strongly disagreed on how to fix the skyrocketing cost of health care, but fix it we must. Where are the Republicans who had a better plan? Today there is no plan except to drive a stake into the heart of the ACA. Do the Republicans want to go back to the days when the leading cause of bankruptcies was health care debt?

The United States learned a hard lesson from the Great Depression. Trade barriers like tariffs are a double-edged sword. Since the end of WWII, Republicans have been advocates of free trade and the creation of the global economy. They were right. The last 70 years of global economic growth, led by the United States, have created the prosperous world we now live in. Not every trade deal was great, but on balance far more jobs were created than lost.

Where are those Republicans now that Canada and the European Union are our trading enemies? How is it that soy farmers in the Midwest and U.S. steel consumers are already in serious trouble because of a trade war we started with China? 

Immigration stirs deep feeling in both political parties, but even very conservative business owners acknowledge that we need a supply of short-term labor. Literally millions of these jobs are now filled with both legal and illegal immigrants. Where are these Republicans now that there is an all-out attack on every form of immigration? How do they plan to fill those jobs that American workers traditionally will not do?

I do not understand where my Republican friends have gone. Have they been chased out of the party they created and loved? Are they waiting and hoping that the principles they once advocated for will come back in fashion? Or are they willing to live in a world of alternative facts and where loyalty to this president is all that matters? 

Louis Vitale

Franklin