Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
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For many (most?) politicians, there is neither right nor wrong, neither moral nor immoral. There only is IN or OUT. For them, politics is not constituent interest; it is self interest.
When self interest meant collecting millions from the 1%’s Koch brothers, Pete Peterson et al, (courtesy of the right wing Supreme Court), conservative politicians suddenly became religiously right — so religious, they prayed every day . . . for money.
But when all those millions (together with conservatives’ cruel efforts to deny poor people access to the polls) failed to win elections, many conservatives had an epiphany:
“Maybe we should do what the voters want rather than what the 1% wants. Maybe we can get our dollars from people who are not right-wing crazies. After all, Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump, didn’t win for us.”
Given the sudden realization that adopting extreme, right-wing, pseudo-religious selfishness doesn’t have long-term, election benefits among thinking and moral Americans, let alone among the people conservatives intentionally try to hurt, politicians may be starting to take on a new religion – the religion of rationality and decency.
Here is one clue the times, may be a-changin’:
GOP’s Electoral Vote Scheme Already On Life Support
Talking Points MemoKey Republican officials in Virginia, Ohio, Florida, and Michigan are coming out against a RNC-backed scheme to rig the electoral vote in Democratic-leaning states in order to boost Republican presidential candidates. That leaves just Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as the remaining blue states with Republican statehouses actively considering the idea.
Funny how when you’re are caught with your hand in the cookie jar, suddenly you acquire a conscience, hoping to avoid punishment.
But more convincing is this:
The tea party is losing a few of its revelers
Washington Post article by Dana MilbankLouisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a possible presidential candidate in 2016, ridicules fellow Republicans as the “stupid party” and urges Washington Republicans to get over their obsession with cutting budgets.
The office of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, another would-be Republican presidential candidate, declares that he will not go along with a plan, hatched by conservative legislators, to rewrite the state’s election laws in a way that would stack Virginia’s electoral votes against Democrats.
Fundamentally, Americans are decent people. We know the difference between right an wrong, fair and unfair. Meanwhile, politicians know the difference between being voted IN and voted out, and they all agree: IN is better. So if morality and decency are the path to IN, perhaps that’s the way to go.
Saturday: Reports emerge that House Speaker John Boehner had given a speech in which he referred to “hard heads” in his Republican caucus.
This is the same guy who famously lied, “America is broke.” Clearly we’re not “broke” as he and his fellow hard head claimed, and not being broke, or anywhere near broke, there is no reason to reduce spending.
Sen. John McCain, who during his 2008 presidential run backed an enforcement-only approach to immigration, declares his support for a plan for undocumented immigrants to become legal.
McCain, the slow learner who chose Sara Palin, and who must have taught flip-flop to Mitt Romney, is beginning to understand that Americans empathize with the less fortunate (all our families contain immigrants), and really don’t like the “mean bastard” school of law enforcement.
This last offense was too much for Rush Limbaugh, who denounced the “amnesty” plan.
If Limbaugh hates it, you know you’re doing something right. When Limbaugh’s audience ratings deservedly begin to drop, as more and more Americans become disgusted with his crazed bigotry, and he begins to worry he’ll meet the same fate as Sarah Palin (dropped by Fox “News”), he too will have an epiphany, and suddenly become “Mr. Compassionate.”
Watch for it.
Demagoguery works well in bad times, but . . . if anything, (voter) anger has turned against tea-party lawmakers. Christie, one of the most popular Republicans in the land, decried GOP leaders’ “disgusting” behavior after they forced a delay in funds for Hurricane Sandy recovery. The leaders relented, allowing the spending bill to pass despite “no” votes from most House Republicans.
Deficit spending is O.K. if a conservative legislator needs it. Not O.K. if the poor or any other left-leaning voters need it.
On immigration, likewise, fear of the tea party’s demagoguery has subsided. McCain, for example, fought off a primary challenge in 2010 from an opponent who called him soft on illegal immigration. But on Monday, McCain stood up to those who would call his new plan amnesty. A “de facto amnesty” already exists, he said. “We have been too content for too long to allow individuals to mow our lawn, serve our food, clean our homes and even watch our children, while not affording them any of the benefits that make our country so great.”
The reality of lost elections can overcome the reality of the 1%’s bribery.
The return of the old McCain (in 2010, he endorsed Arizona’s harsh immigration law) is an encouraging sign. More good news comes from the House, where most declined to join Limbaugh in his “amnesty” rant.
Better late than never, reality has begun to dribble into the Congressional hard heads. Given time to think, the decent people of America do not like bigoted, mean-spirited legislators. Politicians, whose first goal is personal survival, have begun to listen.
Vote rigging is the first small test. Immigration may be the next. But the real test for both parties, will be austerity and federal spending, where almost all deficit reductions hurt the 99%, and widen the power gap between the 1% and the 99%.
If people realize that politicians have lied to them, and not acted on their behalf, but rather on behalf of the 1%, the notion that the federal government is running short of dollars and [insert Tea Party slogan here] will be exposed as myths.
We then can rid ourselves of disastrous austerity, close the gap between the rich and the rest, and be on our way to fairness and prosperity in America.
Is the Republican party ready for reform? Perhaps not yet, but one more sound trouncing at the polls might rid them of the Tea Party / “religious” right evil that engulfed them and much of America in 2010.
And without right wing pushing, will Democrats, too, abandon austerity, especially if they believe they will be blamed for the next recession, which absolutely will be caused by austerity? With austerity in place, a worsening recession is a certainty before the next election. Will Democrats risk that?
The day politicians and media writers of both parties turn away from their wealthy masters and admit that austerity always, always, always destroys an economy, and deficit cutting, now and in the future, is the worst thing America can do – on that day, I will believe we will be ready to grow America, again.
Of course, the 1% never stops trying to push down the 99% and widen the gap. So, ultimately the voters will have to realize the rich are at fault for our nation’s misery, then decide the future of America.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
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Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Medicare — parts A, B & D — for everyone
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Long-term nursing care for everyone
5. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
6. Salary for attending school (Click here)
7. Eliminate corporate taxes
8. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
9. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99%
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports
#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
Rodger says, “Deficit spending is O.K. if a conservative legislator needs it. Not O.K. if the poor or any other left-leaning voters need it.”
Yes, consider H.R. 41 (Hurricane Sandy relief bill). It had 44 co-sponsors, all of which were from hurricane-affected areas (NY, NJ, CT, and DE) except for Maxine Waters (D-CA).
For politicians outside the disaster area, it was austerity-as-usual. They refused to be co-sponsors.
The final House vote was 354-67.
All 67 ‘no’ votes were cast by Republicans, again from outside the hurricane-affected areas.
Over in the Senate, Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced S. 3655 (“Superstorm Sandy Unemployment Relief Act”). Republicans killed it.
The reason Republicans prevented the government from sending any relief money for ten weeks was to let private companies (disaster capitalists) exploit the catastrophe by offering high-interest loans to the needy.
Finally, H.R. 41 authorized the Treasury to create $60.4 billion on its keyboard, and send it as “supplemental relief.” Most of that money will go to people who bought insurance from the government against losses from flooding. (Most private insurance companies do not sell flood insurance, since the payouts are too large.)
People who could not afford to buy government insurance are at the mercy of private disaster capitalists.
As I said, the Treasury created that $60.4 billion on its keyboard, debt-free. Nonetheless, this is always called “borrowing.” The formal description of H.R. 41 was to “Temporarily increase FEMA’s borrowing authority for carrying out the National Flood Insurance Program.”
“Borrowing authority?” Does FEMA have to pay back that money to someone? No, of course not. But politicians don’t want you to know that. They want you to think the U.S. government borrows all its money. That way they can get away with imposing austerity on the peasants. And 99.9% of the peasants agree that they must have austerity.
By the way, Republicans claim that the U.S. government is “broke,” but they get billions whenever they want it, e.g. for disasters. Republicans held up disaster relief for 10 weeks. When they finally decided to let the government send some relief, Republican Scott Garrett (NJ) introduced H.R. 41 on 3 January. It passed both the House and Senate the following day, and was signed by Obama on 6 Jan (a Sunday). Not bad for a “broke” government.
I say there should be no disaster relief from the government at all. Not ever. The government has a “debt crisis.” We must all “live within our means.” If millions suffer from a flood, a hurricane, or a meteor, these are “acts of God.” They were “meant to be.” If we let the government send money for disaster relief, then we are not being “fiscally responsible.”
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