Playing politics with interest rates

The headlines in your Business section of Nov. 3 state: "Fed leaves interest rates alone ... But they may go up after election." The story goes on and on about how the Fed is so great and Janet Yellen is so wonderful and has continued the White House objective in keeping Interest rates near zero except for the slight uptick last December.

What was not mentioned is that the Fed under the direction from the White House has kept the interest rates low for a few reasons, one of which is: Under Obama's eight-year reign the national debt has gone from $10 atrillion to $20 trillion. In 2015, 6 percent of the federal budget or $223 billion was spent on the interest on the national debt. Imagine what the annual budget since the national debt would be now had interest rates been somewhere near the average over the last 25 years of 5 percent to 6 percent.

Another reason for low interest rates: it helps the stock market performance. It is the only portion of the Obama economy which has performed well in most of his eight years.

With Trump elected, I predict the interest rate will go up on orders from Obama so the U.S. stock market will decline, the U.S. bond market have problems and the national debt will increase, giving the Democrats their first reason to declare war on President Trump.

Dan Bulicek

Lindenhurst