To the editor:

These are not the best days for the U.S. dollar, as it slips — unseen by most Americans — to new lows against the world’s major currencies. This is most troubling given that two-thirds of foreign reserves are held in dollars. When, as surely it must, the day comes that foreign central banks decide that it’s not in their economic interests to hold assets that are declining in value, the U.S. will face a painful day of economic reckoning.

Meanwhile, in foreign policy, international justice, the environment, health policy, etc., the Bush administration pursues policies that suggest that the United States can and should “go it alone” on the world stage. But, by incurring massive federal debts funded by foreign nations and by failing to deal with our large and growing negative trade balance, America is putting an economic leash in the very hands of the foreign nations that we so routinely vilify and snub.

Rather than correcting our course by pursuing policies that ensure our economic independence, the administration is calling for driving deeper into this ditch by mortgaging our future with measures like making the last three tax cuts permanent and by eliminating taxes on unearned income altogether, just to name two. The result will be that a very few Americans will live even higher on the hog, while the children and grandchildren of most of the rest of us are forced to pay a staggering bill to the world’s bankers.

Francois Henriquez,

Lawrence