How are the Democrats actively helping Trump win in 2020?

Let’s begin with the absolute fact that Donald J. Trump is an immoral, incompetent, lying, bigot, and a fool. So how can he possibly win the next election?

Are we to believe that the majority  of Americans either don’t see it, or don’t care, or even actively demand that their President be an immoral, incompetent, lying, bigot, and a fool?

Somehow, I have more faith in the American electorate than that. Trump can’t win on his own.

But what if he has help from the Democrats? 

Here are excerpts from an article published by Reason.com 7/22/19:

Possible Budget Deal Will Add $2 Trillion to the National Debt
If President Donald Trump signs the deal into law, he will have authorized a 22 percent increase in federal discretionary spending during his first term in office.
ERIC BOEHM | 7.22.2019 4:15 PM

It holds true that the only thing pretty much everyone in Congress and the White House can agree on is to spend more money.

The White House and Congress are closing in on a deal to hike spending and postpone a battle over the debt limit until July 2021—eight months after the next presidential election.

The proposed plan will increase current spending caps by $320 billion over the next two years, with the spending hikes equally split between domestic programs and the military.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid“? Per HuffPost: [In 1992, James Carville, an aide to Bill Clinton, focused on, “It’s the economy, stupid,” until it became a part of the American political lexicon.]

It simply means that for most voters, the single most important vote-determining factor is their wallet. Whichever candidate makes the most extravagant claims about future employment and wages, has the best chance to win.

Depending on the details, the new budget could add as much as $2 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a self-proclaimed, “nonpartisan” group that favors balanced federal budgets.

Every U.S. depression has resulted from federal debt reduction:

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.

By law, the federal “debt” (i.e. deposits into T-security accounts) is increased with federal deficit spending. And federal deficit spending adds growth dollars to the economy.

So, the proposed increase in current spending caps by $320 billion over the next two years, will enrich the economy, and add jobs and payroll.

Because the Democrats are going along with this, they are helping the party in power to retain its power, while helping the President to retain the Presidency. (It’s the economy, stupid.)

Why would Democrats do this?

In a statement, the CRFB said the budget deal “may be the worst in history,” given the country’s current precarious fiscal condition.

“Members of Congress should cancel their summer recess and return to the negotiating table for a better deal. If they don’t, those who support this deal should hang their heads in total shame as they bolt town,” says Maya MacGuineas, president of the CRFB.

“This deal would amount to nothing short of fiscal sabotage.”

If President Donald Trump signs the deal into law, he will have authorized a 22 percent increase in federal discretionary spending during his first term in office—having signed a March 2018 budget deal that similarly jacked up both domestic and military spending.

As always, the wrong-headed CRFB spews the austerity notion that by some magic, adding dollars to the economy will have a negative effect on economic growth, while taking dollars from the economy will stimulate growth.

It’s utter nonsense, but it’s nonsense the CRFB is paid to spew.

Why? Because the rich grow richer when the Gap between them and the non-rich grows. Increased government spending usually benefits the poor and middle classes (narrowing the gap).

The rich, who run America, hate spending that benefits the middle and poor. So they pay people like CRFB to disseminate the Big Lie that the federal debt is “unsustainable,” The same lie they have been telling during all the years the government has “sustained” a growing debt.

Democrats are largely a lost cause when it comes to fiscal responsibility, while Republicans—with few exceptions—are little better, having abandoned decades of lip service to the benefits of smaller government.

Note the subtle shift: Suddenly the CRFB is talking about “smaller government,” which is substantially different from “less spending.”

Naturally, CRFB does not explain how it was possible for the nation to have grown while its government spending also has grown. According to CRFB, the massive increase in federal debt should have thrown us into recession, depression or worse.

But here we are, growing, growing, growing, in GDP and “debt.”.

We’re not even a decade removed from the moment when every major Republican candidate for president said they would reject a budget deal that included $1 in tax increases for every $10 in budget cuts.

Now, the modus operandi of the GOP is to ignore the threat of what near-record debt levels will do to economic growth in the coming decades.

I’ll tell you what near-record debt levels will do to economic growth. Near-record debt levels will add growth dollars to the economy, thereby growing the economy and (oh, dear!) perhaps funding things like Medicare for All and more generous Social Security — the very last things the rich want.

The Republican Study Committee, a coalition that includes most members of the House GOP caucus, has condemned the budget deal as fiscally irresponsible, and the president of the conservative Club for Growth has said the agreement will “propel our country toward bankruptcy and fiscal crisis.”

If this ridiculous, actually impossible “sky is falling” prediction sounds familiar to you regular readers, perhaps you last saw it here: “It is 2019, and the phony federal debt “time bomb” still is ticking.”

But again, why would the Democrats go along with something that advances the possibility of Trump winning another term?

One is tempted to say it is due to ignorance and cowardice.

Some Democrats truly might be ignorant of the absolute fact that increased federal deficit grows the economy, and there is zero danger the Monetarily Sovereign, U.S. federal government ever can run short of its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.

Most of the Democrats, however, are well aware of the truth. In fact, Bernie Sanders hired Professor Stephanie Kelton, an economist who understands Monetary Sovereignty, as his economic advisor.

I’ve communicated with Professor Kelton; she told him the facts.

What of cowardice? Are the Democrats afraid the American electorate is so obtuse and so resistant to learning, that any politician telling them the truth will be pilloried? Perhaps, but . . .

I believe the truth is to be found elsewhere — with the fundamental difference between the two parties:

The Republicans are united and victory-driven. As a group, they are perfectly willing to sacrifice any principles for votes. They are conservative only when that is a winning strategy.

Donald Trump, for instance, never has had an underlying philosophy. He has changed with the wind, depending on what his daughter and Fox News’ Sean Hannity tell him, today.

Our Republican president says he doesn’t have to worry about the coming debt crisis because he “won’t be here” when it happens, and conservative talking heads that once blasted President Barack Obama for soaring levels of national debt now argue, as Rush Limbaugh did last week, that “all this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it’s been around.”

As Republican Senator Mitch McConnell once said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” That is classic Republican aspiration.

By contrast, the Democrats are divided and ideology-driven. They each wish to help the tired, the poor, the homeless, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, each in a different way.

The Democrats will sacrifice votes for principle, as witness the intramural battles for the soul of the party. Example: “The Squad” of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. pull the Democrats into electorally unpopular, but ideologically impelled directions.

There is, among Democrats, a greater insistence on ideological purity, and less reliance on political cleverness.

We’ll end with the CRFB’s final gasp of nonsense:

The CBO presently projects that by 2049, the national debt will be more than one and a half times the size of the entire U.S. economy, breaking a record set during World War II.

If a recession hits, those numbers could be worse.

And yet the only thing officials in Washington can agree to do is spend more money. May our children forgive us.

Three sentences; three moments of nonsense:

1. A low federal debt / Gross Domestic Product fraction never can indicate economic growth. See: Enough already, with the Debt/GDP ratio
2. Insufficient deficit spending actually will cause the recession the CRFB claims to fear.
3. Federal deficit spending on assistances to the middle classes and the poor (Social Security, Medicare, poverty aids, school aids) will benefit our children.

The Democrats know; the Republicans know; the rich know. Sadly the poor and middle-class majorities don’t know, which is why the worst President in U.S. history was elected and may be re-elected.

Ignorance has its penalties

Summary:

In answer to the title question: “How are the Democrats actively helping Trump win in 2020?”

The Republicans are more united and victory-driven. Together they sacrifice principle for votes. The Democrats are more divided and individually ideology-driven. They sacrifice votes for personal principle.

One might think that because “the tired, the poor, the homeless, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free” outnumber Protestant, white, males, and that self-described Democrats outnumber self-described Republicans, the Democrats would win more elections.

But while Republicans find it easy to unite behind any scoundrel who will win, the Democrats engage in internecine, divisive battles based on personal ideological purity.

That lack of unity can be deadly.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell
Search #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the richer and the poorer.

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

2. Federally funded Medicare — parts a, b & d, plus long-term care — for everyone

3. Provide a monthly economic bonus to every man, woman and child in America (similar to social security for all)

4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone

5. Salary for attending school

6. Eliminate federal taxes on business

7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 

8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.

9. Federal ownership of all banks

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY