Reminiscing about a tough 2021, but 2022 doesn’t look much better

A tough year just ended, and now another one is upon us. This past 2021 was a conundrum, full of problems, not unlike dining, asking for a steak dinner and being delivered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was disappointing.

The COVID-19 pandemic took center stage, followed by out-of-control crime and government spending. The printing of endless currency by our government fed this nation’s inflation. High inflation triggered the recession, which will now be with us for a few years.

The rampant homelessness and maligning of police in cities and states that are failing thanks to their governments that control them, continues to plague our nation.

Failed foreign policy has also emboldening our enemies and strained our relationships with our allies across the globe.

Here at home, our southern border is completely out of control and taxing our agents placed there to secure us: ICE, the military and our national security. Our borders are open to drug and human trafficking.

An estimated 100,306 citizens have died from fentanyl and methadone overdoses in 2021 from drugs that were delivered across our southern border, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics.

Meanwhile, supply shortages resulting from ill-advised stimulus funding have encouraged people in this country who should be working to instead become couch potatoes.

Our government has coddled the federal teachers’ unions to retain their support and it has resulted in suppressing the education of our children.

China and Russia are poised to test our resolve and I fear they will succeed. Hundreds of American citizens and thousands of our allies who were abandoned in Afghanistan are being hunted and terminated by the Taliban, thanks go our State Department.

Meanwhile, gas and heating prices are soaring; expect big increases in 2022. And we can’t blame this on Trump — President Biden wears the Big Boy pants now.

Town of North East resident Larry Conklin is a Vietnam veteran and a member of both the Millerton American Legion Post 178 and the VFW Post 6851 in North Canaan, Conn.