Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
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Now that the Republicans have a Republican President and a Republican Congress, one might think they are all set to accomplish their signature promise: “Repeal and replace Obamacare.”
Sadly, after all these years, they still don’t have a clue, though six little words could solve the problem for them.
First, a little background, from the Vanity Fair HIVE:
REPUBLICANS ADMIT REPLACING OBAMACARE COULD TAKE YEARS
As it turns out, “repeal and replace” is easier said than done—especially when the G.O.P. has no plan of its own.
BY ABIGAIL TRACY, DECEMBER 1, 2016 10:52 AMDonald Trump and the Republican Party rode their promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act all the way to the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress.
After six years of deriding President__Barack Obama’s__ signature health-care law, the G.O.P. must now take responsibility for remaking a complicated, multi-trillion dollar industry with millions of lives at stake. Or as Obama forewarned one week after the election, “Now comes the hard part. Now is governance.”
Yes, it is oh, so simple, to stand on the sidelines and throw touchdown passes or hit home runs, but when you’re put in the game, the reality sets in that you never have done this before, and are completely clueless about what to do.
But debate is already brewing within the G.O.P. about what comes next. Republican leaders are reportedly working on a plan to vote on symbolically repealing the law early next year, but delaying the actual repeal process for years to give Congress time to rally around a replacement.
Republicans have great experience voting symbolically to replace the Affordable Care Act, having done it more than 50 times. Symbolism is easy. Reality takes work.
The repeal process will be easy. Through a maneuver known as “budget reconciliation”—for which Paul Ryan already conducted a dry run last year—House Republicans can repeal the federal subsidies used to help people lacking employer-provided insurance pay for coverage, the taxes used to fund the Affordable Care Act, and the Medicaid expansion with a single party vote, effectively ransacking the health-care law.
Why do I have the feeling that all those Americans who rushed to vote for Trump, suddenly will wake up and say, “Hey, wait, I don’t want to destroy ACA. I just want to . . . uh . . . do . . . uh . . . something.”
The “replace” process, however, will be much more difficult. This is why the party is arguing for a years-long delay and laying the groundwork for what could be characterized as an “Obamacare cliff,” by imposing a replacement deadline to force cooperation across the aisle.
No, it won’t be an “Obamacare cliff.” It will be a “Trumpcare cliff.” He’s the President. The buck stops there.
Despite the party’s open disdain for the Affordable Care Act, the G.O.P. has never managed to coalesce around a solid alternative over the past six years, and the policy-averse Trump certainly didn’t pitch any detailed proposals of his own on the campaign trail.
The closest outline Republicans have is the proposal Ryan unveiled over the summer, titled “A Better Way,” which notably would replace the subsidies under the Affordable Care Act with flat tax credits and push the Medicaid burden to the states.
Ah, the ever-dependable Ryan, wanting to cost consumers and states money they don’t have, while instituting austerity for the American people and the states.
Ask the euro nations how horribly austerity works, how it destroys lives.
But even Republicans have concerns about Ryan’s plan. “I’m from a state that has an expanded Medicaid population that I am very concerned about,”Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican senator from West Virginia, told Talking Points Memo.
“I don’t want to throw them off into the cold, and I don’t think that’s a strategy that I want to see. It’s too many people. That’s over 200,000 people in my state. So we need a transition.”
Hmmm . . . let’s see now. He doesn’t want to take healthcare coverage from the people in his state. O.K., Senator Capito, who will pay for it if ACA is defunded?
Clearly, after all these years of moaning and groaning, the Republicans still have no answer.
Even with the two to three year delay, Republicans face a tough timeline. Between 22 million and 23 million Americans are expected to lose coverage if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, and while it is too early to estimate how many of those will be eligible for coverage under the Republicans’ alternative (since it doesn’t exist), the G.O.P. risks upending the health-insurance market during an election year.
It’s like the deadbeat who proposes to a woman, with promises he’ll buy her diamonds, a mansion, a Rolls Royce and a trip around the world. So she marries him, only to discover he has no money and no plan.
Hello, Trump voters.
“I think, inevitably, the uncertainty that is created by the election of Donald Trump and a Republican House and Senate is going to cause a lot of turmoil in health-insurance markets, and that, in itself, is going to be harmful,” Timothy Jost, an emeritus professor at Washington and Lee University, (said).
“I think it is going to be a while before it plays out and I think that there will be a lot of people who are hurt by this, but how many and how badly is really hard to tell at this point.”
The fundamental problem is rather simple. Healthcare costs money. So the only question is: Who will pay to provide healthcare to those who can’t afford it?
The politicians can twist and turn and squeal and shout, but unless America believes the 99% should not have healthcare, there are only two answers to the question: Either the federal government pays or the people pay — and the people don’t want to, or can’t afford to, pay.
But the federal government can.
Now for those six little words that would completely solve the problem:
“FEDERAL TAXES DON’T FUND FEDERAL SPENDING”
There they are, those six little words. The first political party that utters them, teaches them to the populace, and acts upon them will be heroes to all but the very rich among us.
Rather than trying to eliminate Obamcare, they first will eliminate the grossly regressive FICA tax that punishes the low wage earner.
“FEDERAL TAXES DON’T FUND FEDERAL SPENDING”
They will provide a fully-funded Medicare, parts A, B and D, for every man, woman and child in America.
“FEDERAL TAXES DON’T FUND FEDERAL SPENDING”
They will provide Social Security to everyone.
“FEDERAL TAXES DON’T FUND FEDERAL SPENDING”
They will institute the balance of the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below)
“FEDERAL TAXES DON’T FUND FEDERAL SPENDING”
And yes, they will control inflation by using interest rates to increase the demand for, and the value of, the dollar.
Meanwhile, the denial of the truths of Monetary Sovereignty, and the insistence on austerity, will continue to plague America, as it has plagued all other nations.
The struggle over healthcare in America will go on and on and on, because it will be based on the false assumptions that federal spending is “unsustainable” (the favorite word of the debt hawks) or is “socialistic” or “communistic,” or will “cause inflation” or makes the government “too big” — not one of which is true.
The Republicans are hopeless, because fundamentally they are the party of the rich, and the rich benefit from austerity.
The Democrats were the party of the working class (up through Lyndon Johnson), but became much less so with right-wingers like Clinton and Obama.
And no one in either party has shown the courage to tell the truth that really would set us free. We are waiting, waiting, waiting for a hero to say:
“FEDERAL TAXES DON’T FUND FEDERAL SPENDING”
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders.
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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the rich and the rest.
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012
Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONEFive reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and corporate taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.
The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
Regarding the post above, I never understood Republican opposition to RomneyCare, or liberals’ defense of it. It seems like a scam to prevent single payer, and to mandate the purchase of insurance from private companies.
It seems to me that Republicans will “reform” RomneyCare by expanding it. For example, Republicans may seek to boost Big Pharma’s profits by mandating universal vaccination for all Americans (except the rich). Or they may seek to privatize Medicare as part of their “reform” of RomneyCare.
I continue to blame all this on average people who reject the truth that “Federal taxes don’t fund federal spending.” It’s like we live in a world where average people let the rich control all the roads, because average people insist that “man can’t fly,” even when they see airplanes in flight.
And don’t forget the “positive money” clowns who say, “You’re right. Federal taxes don’t fund federal spending. BANK LOANS do!”
They are too “brilliant” (i.e. ignorant) to communicate with.
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Speaking of single payer, during the primaries, Sanders filled stadiums by calling for single payer.
Now that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) has put Sanders into the Democratic leadership in the Senate, Sanders will not be introducing any single payer bills like he did before. (So says Lori Kearns, his health policy advisor.)
Sanders’ excuse is that “party unity” is more important than anything. He says that single payer will get in the way of electing a Democratic Senate in 2018 (a Democratic Senate that will continue to oppose single payer).
They are all the same.
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And Stephanie Kelton no longer is part of his staff. Cowardice rules.
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I’d like to know what Stephanie’s experience was like.
Sanders has a bit of a nasty reputation for dismissing his advisors’ opinions by saying, “Don’t lecture me!”
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Incidentally I saw someone write on another blog, “At least Trump opposes the TPP.”
Oh dear.
Every president breaks his promises when he enters the White House. Most presidents reverse *all* their promises. Why will Trump be any different? Each passing day he shows himself to be more of the same.
Obama ran on a left-populist platform, but reversed himself when he got into office. Trump ran on a right-populist platform, but is reversing himself even before he is in office.
(And don’t tell me, you Trump fans, that those few jobs in Indiana the he “saved” will stay saved. In six months those jobs will be moved to Mexico per the original plan, but United Technologies’ state tax breaks will remain permanent.)
Obama had a Sword of Damocles over his head because he was not born a U.S. citizen. (You can attack me for that. I will not respond.)
Trump’s Sword of Damocles is his conflicts of interests stemming from 111 businesses in 18 countries. If Trump displeases his masters, he will be easily destroyed. And don’t forget his ever-shady tax returns.
There are about 98,800 elementary schools in the USA. If only 5% of them have the picture of the current U.S. present in their classroom walls, that’s nearly 5,000 schools with Trump’s picture.
Its best not to think of such things.
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Bernie Sanders is a career politician. Never trust a career politician.
I would trust someone like you RMM or EH. You guys have not had your brains destroyed by the cesspool that is a political career; plus you have a good understanding of the economy and politics in general.
Bernie Sanders is probably a tool of the establishment to give people the illusion that there is still a person out there that can be their hero.
Very much like George Carlin said, politicians are there to give us the illusion of choice.
If we want change we might have to burn this bitch down and hang ALL the politicians who are currently in office. (Sorry RMM that would include Elizabeth Warren as well)
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How exactly does one “burn this bitch down”?
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I am much more lukewarm about Elizabeth Warren than RMM is. Warren is a big fan of the Global(ist) War *Of* Terror. She says Americans should have a chance to refinance their student loan debts, but she says nothing about making tuition free. She supports the Big Lie, and she champions “gay rights” and RomneyCare, but she opposes single payer and the legalization of marijuana.
She makes progressive noises, but does nothing that would enhance real economic equality. This is to be expected. You don’t get catapulted into being a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts by being a genuine leftist / populist. Instead, you must be a politically correct fake leftist.
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SAdly no politician disputes the Big Lie, but she comes closer to being progressive than do others who might be candidates.
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Yes, Rodger,“FEDERAL TAXES DON’T FUND FEDERAL SPENDING”
What perfect ‘misdirection’!
A true statement that has NOTHING to do with a true answer to the question,
“HOW DO WE PAY FOR SPENDING NEW ISSUANCE OF OUR CURRENCY?”
Oh, I get it. We will never pay because “it is money on deposit”
Not to worry, the $5Trillion China and Japan have on deposit, let them beware;
Try to spend it ; we’ll nuke’em. Or the 10% that hold treasuries; when they cash them will give them what they were made out of-a deposit of ‘thin air’.
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You answered your own question, which was:” How do we pay for spending new issuance of our currency?”
The answer is, We pay for spendingBY new issuance of our currency.
(I have no illusions that after all these years, you will understand Monetary Sovereignty, but one can hope.)
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Yes,Rodger, We pay by spending; using new issuance “created out of thin air”.
Please explain why we do not simply default on this new issuance-IF the Fed does not honor it as REAL MONEY,
money that is guaranteed as legal tender; when the new owners wish to redeem it maybe they should issue their redemption on “soft white rolled paper” so it would have at least some value.
BTW: 7 of your 10 steps to prosperity
are really great and very possible. And “Republic Democratic Capitalism” can
” Reverse, .. an economic recovery program that has privileged the recovery of financial markets and corporate profits has fueled the increase in wealth inequality, in the United States and across the world.”(THEATLANTIC.COM|BY MEHRSA BARADARAN)
Reverse that program, make the money FLOW to “…help form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,…”
SOLUTION. “Democratic Republic Capitalism”
Capitalism is the “best” system to date devised by mankind. When capitalism uses its administration properly,that is for the betterment of the common good, with equality and justice for all, capitalism would be one of the “greatest” achievement of mankind.
***The ease with which the government’s debt could be paid in this way was demonstrated in January 2004****
As the chairman of the Coinage Subcommittee observed in the 1980s, the entire federal debt could actually be paid in this way. The Federal Reserve has already established that it can issue $4.5 trillion in accounting-entry QE without triggering hyperinflation. In fact, it has not succeeded in triggering the modest inflation the exercise was designed for.
As with QE, paying the federal debt in this way would just be an asset swap, replacing an interest-bearing obligation with a non-interest-bearing one. The market for goods and services would not be flooded with “new” money that would inflate the prices of consumer goods, because the bond holders would not consider themselves any richer than before. They presumably had their money in bonds in the first place because they wanted to save it rather than spend it.
They would no doubt continue to save it, either as cash or by investing it in some other interest-generating securities.
The ease with which the government’s debt could be paid in this way was demonstrated in January 2004, when the US Treasury called a 30-year bond issue before its due date. The bonds were redeemed “at par” to avoid a 9-1/8% interest rate, which was then well above market rates.
The Treasury’s January 15, 2004 announcement said that payment would be made “in book entry form,” meaning numbers were simply entered into the Treasury’s online money market fund (Treasury Direct). In effect, the money just moved from an online savings account to an online depository account, converting interest-bearing bonds into non-interest-bearing cash.
Where did the Treasury get the money to refinance this $3 billion bond issue at a lower interest rate? Whether it came from the private banking system or from the Federal Reserve, it was no doubt created out of thin air.
As Federal Reserve Board Chairman Marriner Eccles testified before the House Banking and Currency Committee in 1935: When the banks buy a billion dollars of Government bonds as they are offered . . . they actually create, by a bookkeeping entry, a billion dollars.
The US government can just as easily create this money by a bookkeeping entry itself. It can and it should, to avoid the interest charges that compound the national debt and make it unrepayable.
Quoting Thomas Edison again:
“If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also.
The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way”
When, when will you discover “Real money is a debt; a receipt of a value given up by someone for the sake of a future value.”
There is one word for two different types (“real” or “fictitious”)of money. When the two different types are deposited; they become “as one” indistinquisable. GOD help us should they all try to claim their redemption at the same time!
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Eccles was wrong about one thing. The federal debt never can be “unrepayable.”
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RMM, RE: “Eccles was wrong about one thing. The federal debt never can be “unrepayable.”
As you have said to me, I must repeat to you,
“(I have no illusions that after all these years, you will understand Monetary Sovereignty, but one can hope.)” The money part of the federal
debt can eternally be reduced to zero but because of the present MS administration’s “fatal flaw”, it can NEVER repay ‘the interest attached’.
BTW this is why U.S.A. is not a MS.
An MS must be the guardian of the sovereignty’s “real money” and must be the sole issuer of that “real money”. An MS must be allowed to “borrow ” at no cost “real money” to fulfill its obligation as guardian to maintain the quality and quantity of its “real money” values .
justaluckyfool@aol
Only a real MS’s Bank can issue ‘real money’, that which is a receipt for SOMETHING owned, all other issuance’s are “made out of thin air” and are “fictitious”.
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Still hoping.
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Trump’s Carrier speech ‘absolutely chilling,’ economic analyst says
President-elect Donald Trump ‘s speech about his deal to keep Carrier jobs in the United States was “absolutely the worst speech,” economic policy analyst Jimmy Pethokoukis told CNBC on Thursday.
Pethokoukis, a scholar with the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, called it the worst economic speech since Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale promised to reverse Reaganomics in 1984.
“The idea that American corporations are going to have to make business decisions, not based on the fact that we’ve created an ideal environment for economic growth in the United States, but out of fear of punitive actions based on who knows what criteria exactly from a presidential administration. I think that’s absolutely chilling.
Trump’s deal with United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) includes $7 million in financial incentives provided by Indiana to keep 1,100 jobs at Carrier, the company’s heating and air conditioning unit, in the state.
However, Carrier still plans to move roughly 1,300 other jobs to Mexico and close another facility in Indiana.
Robert Shapiro, former undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs under President Bill Clinton , said the problem in this country is not about getting people to work.
“Unemployment is below 5 percent today. We’ve largely achieved that. The goal is to keep that going and to do it with rising incomes,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s ” Power Lunch ” before Trump’s speech.
That means a serious agenda of public investment in education, training, infrastructure and other things that make companies more productive, he explained.
“We certainly don’t want to take as our guide to creating jobs special tax breaks for a company that earned $7.5 billion in profits last year, got $6 billion in defense contracts, paid its top five executives $50 million, in order to preserve 1,000 out of 2,100 jobs,” said Shapiro.
“It’s essentially a transfer from the taxpayers of Indiana, who are providing these tax breaks, to the shareholders of United Technology plus those 1,000 workers.
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Mr. Mitchell,
To “burn this bitch down”, we grab the bitch, we tie her to a stake and . . . . we burn her. 🙂
But in all seriousness, “burning the bitch” would be to have the regular Joe’s and Josephine’s in the country embrace MS, reject career politicians, and stand up to the oligarchs. It’ll probably never happen, but oh well, like people say in Spanish – “Se vale soñar” – “Dreaming is fair”.
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