The following Letters to the Editor appeared in the June 17, 2026 edition of the Star Valley Independent.

The President and Vietnam

Dear Editor

We sure have the stupidest President ever in the White House.

He claimed that several times, that we lost over 100,000 men during the Vietnam War.

Here is a man who avoided the draft by claiming bad feet, but can play hundreds of rounds of golf.

Well President Trump, the number if 58281 men were casualties.

As a veteran of  the Vietnam conflict,  I served  from 1969-1971, you Mr. President should be ashamed of yourself.

As the Vietnam Wall comes to Afton soon, let us turn out to recognize the sacrifices these men gave  during this time period. I have been to both the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C. several times and also the moving wall in Concord, NH., and  the feeling one gets with being there is special.

Jeff Bowen

 

Hamilton’s America or Britain’s Empire?

By Amber Hyde

Disclaimer: The following article is protected speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and reflect the author’s opinions based on publicly available, information and legislative proceedings.

America’s political debates often focus on taxes, regulations, energy, and trade. But beneath those arguments lies a much deeper question that has shaped our nation since its founding:

Should America follow Alexander Hamilton’s American System or the British Imperial System that Hamilton spent his life fighting against?

Most Americans have heard of Alexander Hamilton, but few understand his economic vision. Hamilton believed a nation’s wealth came from production. He argued that America must build its own industries, develop its own infrastructure, and produce the goods necessary for prosperity and national independence. Under this plan, Government dose not create the economy (people do), and taxation is almost non existent.

In his 1791 Report on Manufactures, Hamilton laid out a strategy to transform America from a collection of agricultural colonies into a powerful industrial nation. His plan rested on four pillars: a national currency backed by commodities like minerals , protective tariffs, infrastructure investment, and the promotion of domestic manufacturing and industry.

Hamilton feared that without such a system, America would remain economically dependent on foreign powers—especially Great Britain.

The British Imperial System operated very differently. Wealth was concentrated in financial centers like London while colonies supplied raw materials. Cotton, timber, coal, minerals, and agricultural products flowed out of the colonies. Manufactured goods flowed back in. The colonies produced; the empire profited.

Hamilton believed this arrangement kept nations weak and dependent.

His ideas did not die with him. Decades later, statesman Henry Clay adopted Hamilton’s vision and called it the “American System.” Clay advocated protective tariffs, internal improvements such as roads and canals, and a strong national economy built on production rather than speculation.

Clay’s American System influenced leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, who supported infrastructure development, a national currency system, and policies that helped turn the United States into the world’s leading industrial power. The transcontinental railroad, American manufacturing, and much of the nation’s industrial rise can trace their roots to Hamilton’s original vision.

This plan did not include a “Federal Reserve”.

Many historians argue that Hamilton’s system helped build the American middle class because it rewarded workers, producers, inventors, farmers, miners, and manufacturers. Wealth was created by making things.

America has drifted away from Hamilton’s model and toward something resembling the old British system. Globalization, financialization, offshoring, and an economy increasingly driven by debt and financial markets rather than allowing people to create, produce and profit form the wealth of the Nation as a whole.

Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, the question remains relevant.

Does national prosperity come primarily from producing things, building infrastructure, and creating tangible wealth? Or does it come from finance, global trade, and the movement of the citizens capital (in the form of taxation both local and national) from one government investment to another?

Hamilton lost. More than two centuries after Hamilton wrote his first economic plan, Americans HAVE been living under the British Empire. Is it working for you, or are you working for it?