In the unlikely event you don’t already know whether your U.S. Senators and Representative are ignorant about economics, or are liars, or in rare cases, honest and knowledgable, ask each of them this one question:
“Can the U.S. government run short of dollars?”
Their answers will tell you everything you need to know about their knowledge of federal economics and their honesty.
If they tell you that, “Yes, the government can run short of dollars,” that indicates they either are shockingly ignorant of federal finances, or they are shockingly dishonest.
If they tell you, “No, the government cannot run short of dollars,” then you can follow up with such questions as:
- “Why does the government claim Social Security, a federal agency, is running short of dollars?”
- “Why does the government collect FICA taxes?”
- “Why does the government collect income taxes?”
- “Why would Social Security for All be unaffordable?”
- “Why would Medicare for All be unaffordable?”
- “Why does Medicare have deductibles?”
- “Why would free college, for all who want it, be unaffordable?”
- “Why does the government lend, rather than give, to college students?”
- “Why does America have so many impoverished men, women, and children — people who struggle to find enough to eat and a place to live?”
I recently sent “the one question” to my Senators and my House Representative. If they respond with anything coherent, I will publish their answers.
[Why would any sane person take dollars from the economy and give them to a federal government that has the infinite ability to create dollars?]
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell
Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.
The most important problems in economics involve:
- Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
- Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
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 Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity:
- Eliminate FICA
- Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone
- Social Security for all
- Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
- Salary for attending school
- Eliminate federal taxes on business
- Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually.
- Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.
- Federal ownership of all banks
- 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 the rest.
MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
A truly honest politician (of which there are few to none), would answer the question(s) along the following lines:
No the U.S. Government cannot run short of of dollars; however, our economy is structured along neo-liberal principles and finance capitalism, which requires us to minimize the role of government in the broader economy and set policies that maximize economic returns to our wealthy political benefactors, primarily in the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate), MIC (Military Industrial Complex), and OGAM (Oil, Gas, and Mining) sectors. (Although Tech and Pharmaceutical industries are becoming equally important). This helps to assure that most of the wealth and economic resources are properly allocated to the privileged few, and thus sustain our longstanding socio-economic caste system upon which our great Nation has been built. Dismantling our socio-economic caste system through government spending is tantamount to socialism, which would destroy the very foundation of our American Ideals.
With regard to your other questions let me briefly respond:
1) 2) The Social Security Law as it is currently written requires us to artificially balance the inflow of revenue from FICA taxes and the outflow of expenses in the form of benefits. Because this accounting balance is codified into law, when benefit outflow exceeds FICA income, then the program is legally, albeit not factually, broke. Congress of course could change the law, but we choose not to as it would violate our neo-liberal economic principles.
3) We collect income taxes primarily to reduce the spending power of middle income citizens so that we can assure there are more than adequate resources available to benefactors (lower income people don’t really pay income taxes, which is another reason why we have FICA, as well as federal excise taxes). Starving citizens of income also requires them to acquire more debt to meet basic needs, which greatly helps the FIRE sector. We try to give the appearance of fairness by making our tax system progressive; however, we also create complex loopholes that only our political benefactors can exploit so that we don’t overburden them with useless taxes that the Federal Government doesn’t really need.
4)/5) Social Security and Medicare for All is certainly not unaffordable, but if we provided all of those benefits to every citizen it would make them much less dependent on private sector employers, who in turn would find it more difficult to exploit them at lower wages. This would drive wages up and private debt down, which would reduce our benefactors profits, and unfairly distribute that money and associated resources to lower socio-economic caste people, who are largely undeserving.
6) Medicare deductibles – necessary to reduce the amount of medical resources being consumed by non-productive seniors, so that our rich benefactors can have unfettered access to top medical care. Also, the cost sharing structure of Medicare creates profit opportunity for supplemental private sector insurance, another benefit to the FIRE sector.
7) 8) Affordable Education/Debt Free Education – Creating financial barriers to entry for higher education is one of the key ways to maintain the current socio-economic caste system. Burdening students with education debt is a also a huge source of profit to the FIRE sector.
9) Once you understand that the current socio-economic caste system creates many direct and indirect benefits to our political benefactors, then this final question answers itself.
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In short, most government action supports Gap Psychology, i.e the desire of the rich (who run the world) to become richer by widening the Gap between the rich and the rest.
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BINGO. You hit the nail right on the head.
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How did Dicky Durbin answer?
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But…but…the dollar will lose its reserve currency status as of today! No more petrodollar! Or something. Be very afraid!
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