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Letter: Trump is killing the American dream

FILE- This April 20, 2011, file photo shows some of the 30,000 solar panels that make up the Public Service Company of New Mexico's new 2-megawatt photovoltaic array in Albuquerque, N.M. Some in the U.S. solar-power industry are hoping a decision this week by President Donald Trump doesn’t bring on an eclipse. Companies that install solar-power systems for homeowners and utilities are bracing for Trump’s call on whether to slap tariffs on imported panels. The solar business in the U.S. has boomed in recent years, driven by falling prices for panels, thanks in part to cheap imports. That has made solar power more competitive with electricity generated from coal and natural gas. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan,File)

This letter is in response to The Tribune’s recent article about the State of the Union, where Donald Trump said, “There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.” However, the Trump administration is actually killing the American dream.

The administration recently imposed a 30 percent tariff on imported solar panels. Simultaneously, the administration has invested billions into the fossil fuel industry stating that “We have ended the war on American energy.” But how is this killing the American dream? And how are fossil fuels more American than green energies?

Think about it this way, I’ll use the bootstraps example. While the solar industry is trying to pull itself up by its bootstraps, the Trump administration is holding it down with the 30 percent tariff. However, the fossil fuel industry is being yanked up by its bootstraps with the help of billions of dollars and lax regulations! This is no free market, this is neoliberalism. This is not the American dream, this is an assault on social mobility.

Alec Quick, Holladay