Why the Democrats need new leadership

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 Dems truly are hopeless. They will manage to blow the next election, though they have everything going for them:

*An incompetent, criminal President plus an incompetent, criminal cabinet.
*An anti-middle-income, anti-low-income, pro-rich party.
*Tax increases on imports.
*A new Trump/GOP scandal daily.
*White House lies daily.
*Broken promises daily.
*The vast majority of media opposed to the Trump agenda.
*Making enemies of our allies
*Pro-bigotry
*Immoral treatment of immigrants, especially immigrant children.
*Progressivism is more popular than conservatism

Yet the boobs running the Democratic party — the Pelosi/ Durbin/ Schumer bunch — are doing everything in their power to become conservatives, even to the point of denouncing anything or anyone progressive (See Bernie Sanders).

Consider this: Want to win the working-class vote? Try progressive economic policies, Democrats

Dem leaders embrace pay-go
By Mike Lillis – 06/06/18 

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and other top Democrats are vowing to abide by fiscally hawkish pay-as-you-go rules if they seize the majority next year, rejecting calls from liberals who feel they’d be an impediment to big legislative gains.

Pelosi, who adopted “pay-go” rules when she held the Speaker’s gavel more than a decade ago, says she’ll push to do it again if the Democrats win the House in November’s midterm elections.

“Democrats are committed to pay-as-you-go,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said Tuesday, affirming the policy would be a 2019 priority. 

“Pay-go” is the other name for a balanced budget, the process by which the federal government does not create any new dollars.

This forces the money supply to remain the same, which precludes economic growth, and absolutely, positively guarantees a depression.

Deficit reduction is harmful and unnecessary: Alan Greenspan said it. Ben Bernanke said it. The St. Louis Fed said it. Even Thomas Edison said it.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the minority whip, is also endorsing the notion that a Democratic majority should adopt the budget-neutral rules next year.

“The pay-go rule is a good rule and we ought to reinstitute it,” Hoyer told The Hill last week.

No, it is not a good rule. It is not even a bad rule. It is the most stupid, disaster of a rule that our worst enemies would wish on us.

Yet the idea is already prompting howls from some liberals in the caucus, who want to pursue an ambitious legislative agenda next year — including costly, big-ticket items such as expanding health-care access, subsidizing education opportunities and boosting infrastructure projects — and fear pay-go might be too confining.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), said the Democrats would be foolish to adopt the fiscal restraints, especially in light of the Republicans’ newly adopted tax-reform law, which is estimated to add almost $2 trillion to the debt over the next decade.

“The pay-go thing is an absurd idea now given the times and given what’s already been done to curry favor with corporate America,” Grijalva said.

What? There actually is an intelligent Democrat in Congress? Hard to believe.

Even the Trump Republicans were smart enough to understand that a Monetarily Sovereign government (a government with the unlimited power to create its sovereign currency) must run deficits (create money) in order to grow.

What happens when our government restricts deficit spending?

The vertical gray lines signify recessions. What happens leading up to recessions? Right. Deficit growth is reduced. Seven consecutive recessions preceded by reductions in deficit growth.

And how did we cure recessions? Right. By increasing deficit growth. Worked every time.

Attention Democrats: Any lessons to be learned?

Politically, Republicans will surely bash the Democrats if they pursue expensive government programs without offsets.

But the GOP under President Trump has lost the fiscal high ground, having busted budgets themselves, particularly with the enactment of their tax-reform law. The Congressional Budget Office predicts the annual deficit will top $1 trillion by 2020.

Even the author of this article, Mike Lillis, calls deficit reduction (i.e. starving the economy of dollars) “fiscal high ground.” Does it get more ignorant than that?

Grijalva noted that the revenue losses created by the tax law are already squeezing federal programs favored by Democrats. Adopting pay-go rules on top of that, he argued, would only pinch them further.

“It would be, I think, irresponsible to try to tie up Congress’s ability to respond to economic downturns or, in the current discussion, to slash programs,” he said. “We’re going down a path that I think helped cause the Great Recession.”

Is Grijalva the only intelligent, informed person in Congress? Seems like.

Anyway, this is why Pelosi et al should leave, now:

The liberal position could create a headache for Pelosi and other party leaders, who have hammered the Republicans for being reckless with the budget and want to portray themselves as the more fiscally responsible party.

“We all have responsibility for reducing the debt for our children,” Pelosi said last month at a forum hosted by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which advocates for reducing the national debt.

“Democrats believe that you must pay as you go. Whatever you want to invest in, you must offset.”

Pelosi has zero — make that ZERO — understanding of Monetary Sovereignty and the differences between federal financing vs. state/local government financing.

Pelosi claims there is some magic by which the economy can grow without the money supply growing.

The Republican critics of the strategy argue that pay-go, by the Democrats’ design, is too weak to be effective, since it hasn’t applied to some of the biggest federal cost drivers, including Social Security.

Yes, there is nothing the GOP, the party of the rich, would like better than to cut social programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, etc.

After all, these programs just benefit the poor and the middle, and do little to benefit the rich. 

See if you can discern any difference between the Pelosi position and the ravings of the ultra-right-wing CRFB (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget):

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

“The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget strongly supports calls from House Democratic Leadership to restore PAYGO rules and also urges policymakers to strengthen and closely abide by PAYGO.

“The idea that new spending or tax cuts should be offset is basic to budgeting. If Congress had followed PAYGO principles over the past year rather than debt-financing tax cuts and spending hikes, deficits wouldn’t be approaching the trillion-dollar mark next year.

“Ultimately, lawmakers are going to have to enact significant spending reductions and revenue increases to fix the debt. In the meantime, we should all agree to at least stop the digging and not make the situation worse.”

Let me rephrase her comments for clarity and honesty. She means:

“If the government had followed PAYGO, the money supply would not have increased, the economy would not have grown, and we could have cut spending for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, the military, infrastructure repairs and improvements, medical research and development, aids to education, poverty aids, and every other federal initiative that has built America.

“In this way, we can increase tax cuts to the rich, who after all, are the people who give us those nice, juicy campaign contributions.

“We know that federal debt is nothing like personal debt, in that unlike you, the federal government is Monetarily Sovereign, so it creates its sovereign currency at will.

“We also know that every time we cut deficit spending, we have a recession or a depression, like this:

1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807.
1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.
1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.

“We know it, but we don’t want you to know it, because we are paid by the rich to lie to you.”

There, that’s the truth, finally.

And yet:

US primary elections in eight states confirm rightward shift by Democratic Party (By Patrick Martin)

No one knows what the Democrats stand for. Both parties take money from the rich.

The Democrats need new leadership, because the current leadership has sold its progressive soul to the devil.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.

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 A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Guaranteed Income)) 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 EVERYONE Five 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 FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce 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 business 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