For your interest, here is an Email I sent to Jenn White, a reporter on public radio.
In my fading days, I’m still trying to educate. You might wish to contact your favorite radio or TV personality, too.
Message for Jenn White
Rodger Mitchell
Mar 19, 2025, 11:58 AMOn today’s 1A, I heard your interviewee express the unfortunately common belief that Social Security will run short of dollars, so either benefits must be reduced or FICA must be increased in some way.
This is not correct. Here are the facts, which I have not heard on your show or any other NPR show.
- Unlike state and local governments, the U.S. federal government is Monetarily Sovereign. It cannot unintentionally run short of its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.
- Thus, no agency of the government can run short of dollars unless Congress and the President want it to.
- Social Security is a federal agency. It cannot run short of dollars without Congressional approval.
- If Congress wished, it could add a trillion or a hundred trillion to Social Security merely by voting to do so.
Who agrees with this?:
Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody. The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print the money to do that.”Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.”
Jerome Powell: “As a central bank, we have the ability to create money digitally.”
The St. Louis Fed: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills.
“In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.”
Social Security (and Medicare) are not funded by FICA or by any other tax, but rather by Congressional money creation. (And no, it doesn’t cause inflation.)
I know this is not what you have been taught over the years, but if you would like to learn the full implications of Monetary Sovereignty, please feel free to contact me.
I’ve studied this for 30 years. I’ll be glad to help you understand the realities of federal finance.
(But you’d better hurry; next week I’ll be 90 years old)
Kindest regards,
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
I’ve done this many times, but maybe this will be the one to begin the “Great Awakening.” Hope springs eternal.
Someday the truth will out. I’ll keep at it until my dying day, if I’m able. Perhaps a letter from you might tip the balance.
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Nice letter Rodger! Did you see the article in MarketWatch yesterday about Elon finding the “Magic Money Computers”? I’ve been using it with all my social media posts to show that all Federal spending is new dollar creation and that taxes aren’t used for spending. I tried to paste the link here but WordPress won’t let me. Just google the article title, “Elon Musk ‘magic money computers’ or how the US financial system actually works.”
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Thanks Kipp,
Another reader called that article to my attention and I posted it here as a demonstration of Musk’s ignorance about federal finance, while he is in charge of minimizing federal spending.
It is a perfect example of Trump hiring ignorant and or adverse people based only on their personal fealty to him. He repeatedly hires foxes to guard henhouses, only if the foxes say they love him.
Think of how he has damaged America in only 2-3 months, and he has nearly two more years to create chaos. SCOTUS has made him immune to all punishment for his crimes. Very soon, SCOTUS will be irrelevant, as Trump controls the military, and so will ignore what SCOTUS says.
Lord knows what will happen to us, but I predict a military takeover and the end of democracy in America.
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Gosh,You’re really getting to be an old man. Wonder wh
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The above comment came from my college roommate. Yes, we actually had colleges in those days.
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https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/art-cullen Maybe ask this editor if he understands Monetary Sovereignty
If people actually believe too many dollars is the cause of all problems: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/gift-contributions-reduce-debt-held-by-public/gift-contributions-to-reduce-the-public-debt
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Thanks. I just referred to your article on X: https://x.com/NewThinking2/status/1904081698058350867. I don’t know if my 600+ followers are very influential, but I do sometimes get reposted, up to 100+ times on rare occasions.
Of course, even if Trump or Musk understood this, they wouldn’t tell us because that would shrink the wealth gap and that’s the last thing they want.
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Water erodes stone. Keep on “dripping.” Every voice helps.
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I am glad you wish to continue to educate. I have learned more about money in the
last 4 years(when I was fortunate enough to find this blog) than my previous 64.
Happy Birthday and I hope for many more years of reading your blog.
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Thank you for your good wishes. I wish you the same.
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