What is the largest mistake the US has committed in the last 75 years?

Answer 1

Saving France during WW2, and letting them on the UN security council

Answer 2

Easy. Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program. It was an ill-thought-out hash of programs that have actually caused far more harm than good.

Example? Between 1960 and 1970, the number of blacks living in poverty dropped 50%. But durng the 1970s, when Johnson's programs were at their apogee, the percentage remained roughly the same. Yet, at the same time, tax rates increased geometrically, the inner cities began rotting, crime rates skyrocketed, business investment dropped, educational standards plummeted, productivity slowed to a crawl, and entitlement programs were established that are continuing to drain the American economy today.

Medicare and Medicaid have directly contributed to our outragous healthcare costs today. While welfare for temporarily idle workers is a legitimate function of government, the system established by Johnson created an permanent underclass that did nothing but work the system, to the poiint that we had to completely overhaul the system ten years ago. Yet there are still people today who still look back on LBJ's flirtation with Eurosocialism with nostalgia, despite overwhelming evidence that it was a massive, expensive failure that short circuited economic growth in this country for 20 years and continues to create a drag on the country's prosperity through a massive, unproductive government.

Answer 3

The different answers you are getting here indicates how blind Americans are to the biggest mistake ever: free trade. The effects of free trade agreements are just now starting to surface. Billions of dollars of America's wealth are being siphoned out of this country as more and more of our jobs are being exported.
70% of our IT jobs went to India. All our textile jobs went to china. Engineering and manufacturing jobs went to Mexico. Every where around the globe wages are growing at a much faster rate than here in the USA. Our economy is booming, and our wages are shrinking. This is the first visible effect of the free trade acts. The next visible effect will be the reversing of the flow of illegals across the Mexican border for work. Soon the Mexican government will be faced with the problem of wet-back Americans crossing the border into Mexico for jobs. Within tens years, it's likely there be American gardeners and housekeepers working in Mexico.

Answer 4

Rebuilding of the Japanese industrial complex! Plus the Eisenhower& Nixion admistration allowing their electronics & motor vehicles to be sold in the USA!

Answer 5

Moving the social security fund to the general fund to balance the budget would be one biggie. Taking corporal punishment out of the schools is another.

Answer 6

Why narrow it to 75 years? Why 75?

Answer 7

Dropping the atomic bomb on civilian targets. We had the choice to drop a demonstration bomb to show the Japanese high command what we were capable of doing. Had we taken the moral high ground and done everything we could to prevent the bomb ever being used against humanity, our credibility and the gloabl vision we say we represent would have been completely different from what we know today. Withholding the bomb would have been as potent a force for reconciliation as the using of it was a force for fear.

Answer 8

letting the federal government get too big, too disorganized. allowing the federal bureaucracy to become to large. allowing the federal government to waste billions of dollars, and operate without a balanced budget...

Answer 9

Why are you looking for fault? Your life must be a real joy, going around looking for the worst.

To answer your question: America becoming soft and trying to appease special interest groups.

Answer 10

Vietnam.

That is still affecting and effecting the country 30 years after we left