–How smart are you citizens of Kentucky? Here’s a test for your spleen.

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●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 ultimately 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.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the gap.
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How smart are you citizens of Kentucky? Here’s a test for your spleen.

Los Angeles Times
Michael Hiltzik

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is facing a stiff reelection challenge this year, has stuck to his stated determination to repeal the Affordable Care Act if his party takes control of the Senate in the next election.

This is a curious and delicate position for McConnell to hold, because his home state is one of the shining beacons of the ACA’s rollout. The Kentucky health insurance exchange, Kynect, is enormously popular among Kentuckians. Some 527,000 residents have signed up for qualified health plans or Medicaid, which the state expanded.

Much of the credit belongs to Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, so don’t expect much acknowledgment from McConnell. Still, the extent to which McConnell twisted facts and figures on the ACA during his debate Monday with challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes amazed knowledgeable observers, perhaps none more than Charles Gaba, proprietor of the indispensable ACASignups website.

So Gaba sat down to fact-check every misstatement. He identified 13 uttered during about a five-minute discussion of the ACA, plus about 14 “questionable/confusing statements by either him or the moderator.”

Many of the misstatements — heck, call them lies, as Gaba does — are part of discredited Republican attacks on the ACA going back years; what’s shocking is that McConnell is still hauling them out.

–McConnell dismissed Kynect as (just) “a website.” It’s not; it’s a full-featured exchange that has delivered coverage to more than a half-million Kentuckians.

–McConnell denied Grimes’ assertion that Kynect had served more than 500,000 residents. Gaba assumes he’s subtracting the residents who obtained Medicaid coverage through Kynect. Gaba: “People on Medicaid apparently don’t count as human beings.”

–McConnell claimed the Congressional Budget Office “estimates 2.5 million jobs would be lost” because of the ACA. This is a lie. As Gaba points out, the CBO said the law would allow up to 2.5 million workers to leave their jobs or retire. This is because it eliminates “job lock,” which tied workers to otherwise unwanted jobs because that was the only way they could get health insurance.

–People are “paying more for less” and hospitals are facing more “uncompensated care.” Misleading and wrong on both counts. The rate of premium increase for 2015 under the ACA is averaging 6%, and in many states much less — compared with average increases in the individual market of 10% a year before the ACA. And the new rates are almost always for better coverage. Hospital uncompensated care costs will be $5.7 billion less this year than they would have been without the ACA, a 16% drop from last year.

–McConnell: “They don’t want to tell you” how many people got insurance via Kynect after having their old policies canceled. He’s implying, of course, that most Kynect enrollees already had insurance. He’s wrong: Seventy-five percent of all Kynect enrollees were previously uninsured.

McConnell’s performance demonstrates nothing but pure partisan cynicism. He’s the senior U.S. senator from a state whose experience with Obamacare has been an unalloyed positive, benefiting more than a half-million constituents.

Yet he’s campaigning to cut them off, dooming many of them to a return to a condition in which health insurance could be denied, cut off or pitched beyond their capacity to pay, all at the whim of the insurance industry.

The people of Kentucky, being intelligent, will to see through McConnell’s obvious lies, and send this career politician to the retirement he so richly deserves. Right?

Democratic ads off the air in Kentucky Senate race

FLORENCE, Ky. (AP) — The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has stopped running TV ads in Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race, a severe blow to Alison Lundergan Grimes in her challenge to Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

The committee’s decision in Kentucky was in strong contrast to its activities in other states with pivotal Senate races. Democrats continued to spend freely in Iowa, Georgia, North Carolina and several other states as they tried to blunt a Republican drive to gain a Senate majority in midterm elections.

Grimes was heavily recruited by Democrats to challenge McConnell, but her support eroded in recent polls under the weight of attacks by McConnell and his allies. While McConnell has been plagued by low approval ratings, he has sought to turn the election into a referendum on President Barack Obama, who is even more unpopular in the state.

Grimes’ campaign has been outspent by McConnell and his network of super PACs by tens of millions of dollars.

The Democratic Party ads went off the air as scheduled after Monday, at the end of a two-week period. At the same time, the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, the super PAC supporting McConnell, launched yet another $1.2 million TV ad buy on Tuesday that again connects Grimes to Obama.

The choice is this, for you Kentuckians: If you really, really hate President Obama, you can vent your spleen by voting for McConnell. Of course, you will lose your ACA, with no plausible alternative being proposed.

And no matter for whom you vote, you will lose Obama, who will be out of office in two years.

Bottom line question: Would you rather that your spleen be vented, or would you prefer your spleen to have good health care?

It will be interesting to see the results of this test.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
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10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY