Re: "Entitlement mentality 7.0" [Letter, Village News, 9/13/12]

Millard’s claim of the 1940’s as an example of ending the Great Depression is a good one. WWII did effectively end the Great Depression. The debt to GDP ratio was only 120 percent (debt of $260 billion is still part of our $16 trillion debt) There was rationing, price controls and the top income tax rate in 1944 was a whopping 23 percent. As income taxes didn’t come close to paying the debt, people bought bonds. The government was a lot smaller then. Spending dropped off dramatically in the late 1940’s, creating the boom from which President Eisenhower benefited.

Apparently Millard doesn’t rea...