Who is on the wrong side of virtually every issue?

Are you a Republican or a Democrat? Or something else? Stop a moment and ask yourself, Why?

Are you what you are because it’s a family tradition? Or are there specific issues that move you? Interestingly, the nation seems almost evenly split between the two major parties, while the differences are profound.

My family historically voted Democrat, primarily because of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He created Social Security and maneuvered us out of the Great Recession (though by getting us into the Great War II).

His communication skills and the morals and strength of his wife, Eleanor, contributed to his aura of greatness.

After Harry S. Truman left office, and until perhaps a dozen years ago, I tended to vote Republican, possibly because I come from Chicago, where the Daleys (father and son) were so profoundly crooked. They were Democrats who ran the criminal Democrat machine.

More recently, because of Lyndon Johnson, who, if not for Viet Nam would be considered one of our greatest Presidents, I have leaned toward the Democrats. This is based on the issues.

Here are the issues as I  see them:

I. Donald Trump: He is the uncontested winner of the “worst President” competition. He is a psychopath, which seems to be an infectious disease. His sickness has infected every aspect of American life.

Here is a list of Trump’s symptoms from the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. Glibness. Superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, need for stimulation, proneness to boredom, pathological lying, conning/manipulation, lack of remorse, lack of guilt, shallow emotions (emotions felt in superficial and fleeting ways), callousness, lack of empathy, parasitic lifestyle, promiscuous sexual behavior, early behavior problems, lack of realistic, long-term goals, impulsivity, failure to accept responsibility, many short-term marital relationships, juvenile delinquency, and criminal versatility.

Trump has all 20 of those symptoms. You can see the symptoms explained here.

The abject failure of the Republican party to recognize and deal with, rather than to defend this man’s actions and ravings, is the most crucial issue entering the next Presidential election.

Trump’s traitorous criminality came close to destroying American democracy, and the flag-waving GOP’s refusal to acknowledge it epitomizes the worst political party in recent memory.

II. Quality of people: In addition to Trump, the right-wing has assembled an astounding group of lying, bigoted, fence-straddling hate-mongering ignoramuses to represent conservatism. Think of the low-quality of such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, Mitch McConnell, Kristi Noem, Rick Scott, Ron Johnson, Lauren Boehbert, Lindsey Graham, Brian Mast, Jim Jordan, Kevin McCarthy, Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, Paul Gosar, Andrew Clyde,

We continue with Breitbart, Newsmax, Fox News, and such lying rogues as Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Jeanine Pirro, and Maria Bartiromo.

We also should include Dinesh D’Souza, Ben Shapiro, Stephen Miller, Mike Lindell, Michael Flynn, QAnon, and Steve Bannon.

And it’s only fitting that we end with Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, and Neil Gorsuch.

III. The election: Before the election, Trump already had planned to say the election was stolen if he lost. So he did.

Despite approximately 50 lawsuits, many in front of Republican-appointed judges, all of which determined the election was not stolen, Trump continues to make the same ridiculous claim. 

The Republican Party had two options. It could have agreed with the facts and, for the sake of democracy, moved on. Or it could have adopted and disseminated Trump’s Big Lie.

The GOP chose the latter in a wondrous display of cowardice and dishonesty. That solidified the GOP’s strong consideration for the “Worst Political Party in American History” award.

IV. The Clarence Thomas Saga: Speaking of the “worst in history,” the Supreme Court’s current iconoclastic leader, Clarence Thomas, certainly competes for the title.

“Uncle Tom” Thomas has spent his later years trying to demonstrate that he is not black. He disclaims his blackness aided him in any way, including the affirmative action laws that helped him get into Yale law school. He later denied that the degree he received there helped him.

He voted to overturn a rule that forbids prosecutors from using race as a factor in making peremptory challenges in jury selection, thus pleasing white bigots everywhere.

His nomination by President Bush to replace Thurgood Marshall, the only black on the Supreme Court, was aided by his being black.

The ABA rated Thomas as qualified, with one of the lowest levels of support for a Supreme Court nominee. Thomas’s record includes voting against affirmative action and abortion.

His wife is a QAnon white supremacist, while Thomas refuses to recuse from cases involving that way of thinking, improbably claiming he never discusses cases with her.

Thomas makes decisions based on “originalism and textualism” when it suits his right-wing biases. He ironically denies the existence of the first 13 words of the 2nd Amendment and gives AR-15 rights based on founders who had never heard of an AR-15.

Although, during his confirmation hearings, Thomas claimed, ” “Stare decisis (precedent) provides continuity to our system, it provides predictability, and in our process of case-by-case decision making, I think it is a fundamental and critical concept.

Nevertheless he proved to be a con artist (Anital Hill and others have testified to that, under oath) because he has voted to overturn precedent more often than any other Justice.

That includes voting to overturn the 50-year precedent of Roe v Wade.

Crooked Clarence’s accepting of massive gifts from litigants before the Court, under the “I didn’t know it was wrong,” demonstrates a contrived ignorance beyond belief for a judge in the nation’s highest court.

And have we mentioned Samuel Alito, who equals Thomas in personal duplicity but now has exceeded him in reverence for the rich?

V. The Supreme Court: It is a Court that follows the conservative opinion that a) if a law benefits the masses, and b) the Constitution doesn’t explicitly spell it out, get find a way to get rid of it, preferably by convoluted illogic.  

(a) Abortion: This procedure always is available to the rich, who easily can travel to any city, state, or even country that allows it. The poor cannot.

Abortion benefits the poor, who cannot afford another mouth to feed. It also helps those who can’t afford the best health care that would tend to the health risks of difficult or dangerous pregnancies.

Thus, the local availability of abortion helps widen the Gap between the rich and the poor and functionally makes the rich richer. As Gap Psychology reveals, widening the Gap is the only way the rich can become more affluent.

(b) Guns: Ignoring the first 13 words of the 2nd Amendment (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”) upon which America’s gun/death epidemic exists, the self-defined “originalist” Court ignores the original intent of the framers.

The right-wing explicitly ignores the words “well-regulated” and the word “militia” while missing the original meaning of the word “arms.”

Remember that AK-47s, AR-15s, and large magazines for bullets, even bullets themselves, were unknown when writing the Constitution. Blunderbusses and bayonets were the “arms”  mentioned in the 2nd Amendment. Honesty demands that originalists would not accept modern weapons. But this Supreme Court lacks honesty.

The conservatives also ignore the original purpose of the  2nd Amendment:

(The Constitution’s) most influential framer was James Madison. In Federalist No. 46, Madison wrote how the militia could keep a federal army in check: “A standing army … would be opposed [by] militia.”

He argued that State governments “would be able to repel the danger” of a federal army, “It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.”

He contrasted the federal government of the United States to the European kingdoms, which he described as “afraid to trust the people with arms”, and assured that “the existence of subordinate governments forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition”. 

Thus, for the education of the Court’s phony “originalists,” the fundamental purpose of the 14th  Amendment was for a well-regulated militia to keep the federal army in check.

Today, there is no militia, well-regulated or otherwise, and in any event, such a militia no longer could keep the U.S. military in check. And original “arms” do not include today’s current weapons.

Finally, high-powered rifles with large magazines are not good self-defense weapons but are more appropriate for mowing down large groups of people, as they have been doing with increasing regularity.

The conservative Court’s reasonings logically could apply to the individual ownership of machine guns, bazookas, hand grenades, and even poison gas, all of which have the same relevance to the original meaning of the 2nd Amendment’s “arms” as do AR-15s and AK-47s

(C)Money in politics The constitution does not mention that a well-financed candidate has an advantage over an equally qualified but less financed opponent. 

As always, the conservatives take the side of the rich and equate spending money with free speech. Thus a conservative Court gave us Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which says that money is speech, and since the rich have more money, they have more right to more speech than the poor.

VI. Global warming is human-made: Here, as usual, Trumpism rules the GOP. Some of what Trump, parroted by his GOP toadies, said:

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

“Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee – I’m in Los Angeles, and it’s freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!”

“This winter is brutal. . . .Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by scientists [who] are having a lot of fun.”

“Any and all weather events are used by the GLOBAL WARMING HOAXSTERS to justify higher taxes to save our planet! They don’t believe it $$$$!”

“When I hear Obama saying climate change is the No. 1 problem, it is just madness.”

After Trump denied repeatedly saying climate change is a hoax, Kellyanne Conway clarified his position: “He has said that he believes [climate change] is naturally occurring and is not all man-made.”

Virtually every accredited climate scientist disagrees with Trump and Kellyanne. Human-made carbon dioxide is warming the world, which will lead to an existential disaster. The GOP will be known as the party that helped destroy humankind and the rest of the living world.

Trump selected Scott Pruit to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, the same Scott Pruitt who repeatedly sued the agency to prevent it from doing its job. It was like selecting the proverbial fox to guard the henhouse.

Finally, as with all things the GOP favors, global warming adversely affects the poor more than the rich. In addition to the rich having better air conditioning, the “heat island” effect in areas where parklands don’t exist is significantly more significant than the heating in more wide-open floral spaces common to estates.

VII. Guns: The GOP, the party of the rich, favors massive gun ownership for one crucial reason and perhaps several less critical ones.

Who is being killed by guns, the rich or the poor? The answer is clear. Widespread, easy access to firearms is killing and maiming the poor and middle classes, leaving the rich relatively unscathed. This death by violence widens the income, wealth, and power Gap between the rich and the rest.

Gap Psychology dictates that the only way the rich can become more prosperous is to widen the Gap between them and those below them. This is accomplished by gaining more for themselves and ensuring those below lose more.

Gun killings have shattered many poorer neighborhoods and lives, thus widening the Gap.

The rich have guns to protect themselves from the poor. The poor have guns to protect themselves from their neighbors.

VIII. Federal Benefits: The primary benefits for the middle and the poor are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, “Obamacare,” and the various anti-poverty initiatives — school lunch programs, the Child Tax Credit, The American Rescue Plan, etc., all of which are resisted by the GOP.

By contrast, the GOP has favored increased deductions for charitable donations, business expenses for personal benefit, tax-loss manipulations (which is how Trump managed to pay virtually no taxes for ten years),  lower tax rates on capital gains, and numerous tax laws that allow the wealthiest  Americans to pay no taxes at all.

Meanwhile, the GOP falsely claims the benefits paid to middle-class and poor Americans are running short of dollars and need to be cut. That is why you’ve seen all the crocodile tears regarding  Social Security, Medicare, etc., running short of money. It’s a lie fostered by the rich.

IX. Dreamers:  Per Brave:

The term “DREAMer” refers to young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children who have lived and gone to school here and often identify as American.

They are protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which is not designed as a path to permanent residency or citizenship. The recipients of DACA are young people who have grown up as Americans, identify themselves as Americans, and many speak only English and have no memory of or connection with the country where they were born.

Under current immigration law, most of these young people had no way to gain legal residency even though they had lived in the U.S. most of their lives.

Many Dreamers say they didn’t know they were unauthorized immigrants until they were teenagers, often when they discovered they couldn’t join their peers in getting a driver’s license or filling out financial aid forms for college because they didn’t have Social Security numbers.

The xenophobic, anti-poor, pro-rich GOP opposes citizenship for dreamers.

X. Gays: The GOP spreads the false narrative that being gay is evil, and being exposed to gay people somehow taints straight children and encourages them to “decide” to be gay. The GOP accuses gay people of “grooming” straight people to be gay. 

It is a lie. One cannot be “groomed” to be gay.

According to “Kids Health,” :

Being straight, gay, or bisexual is not something a person can choose or change. People don’t choose their sexual orientation any more than they choose their height or eye color. It is estimated that about 10% of people are gay.

Gay people are represented in all walks of life, across all nationalities, ethnic backgrounds, and in all social and economic groups.

No one fully understands what determines a person’s sexual orientation, but various biological and genetic factors likely explain it.

Medical experts and organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Psychological Association (APA) view sexual orientation as part of someone’s nature.

Being gay is also not considered a mental disorder or abnormality.

The GOP’s anti-gay posture is no more defensible as an anti-black or anti-tall belief. It is ignorant bigotry, pure and simple.

XI. “Woke”: The GOP is anti-“Woke,” which has become a cornerstone of Ron DeSantis’s Presidential aspirations. 

Although most Republicans claim to hate “woke,” most have no idea what it is. Their hatred begins with their ignorance.

From Wikipedia: Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English, meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.”Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism.

The GOP denies racial prejudice, discrimination, and social inequalities such as sexism exist and if they exist, they are meaningless, or their discussion is harmful.

Denying that social inequalities exist and refusing to warn our children about them grooms children to be haters and perpetuates the bigotry that still curses America. Sadly, that’s the GOP’s whole purpose.

By training children to be tomorrow’s bigots, today’s bigots retain control over society. Their fears and hatreds are shared. The notion that a black or gay or Jew might enter the neighborhood is an anathema to the insular right wing.

Denying the past is how never to learn from it, and is the method of the dictator.

XII. Book “Burning”: The Nazis did it. It has a long history in America, too.

Remember that the GOP criticized the left wing for its supposed “cancel culture.” But the Republicans have taken cancel culture to a new high in American history.

Among the books that have been banned by Republican censors are: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger; The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck; To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee; The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, Ulysses, by James Joyce, Beloved, by Toni Morrison, The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, 1984, by George Orwell, Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, Animal Farm, by George Orwell and many others. 

Generally, a book is banned because a parent doesn’t want their child to read it. The parent harbors the false belief that if children don’t see swearing or pornography or read about communism, socialism, nazism, liberalism, and other “isms,” their little minds won’t be contaminated as they grow up.

The opposite is true. Understanding the sin, rather than experiencing it from their ignoble peers, can prevent absorbing the sin.

The GOP, notably Gov. Ron DeSantis, banned books that are “woke.” Teachers even are fired for talking about “woke.” The GOP wrongly believes ignorance is a good sin preventative.

Even the bible was smarter than that, for the bible explained sin in excruciating detail, while explaining why it was wrong.

XIII COVID: It has become a Trump/GOP loyalty test to deny the seriousness of COVID and the usefulness of anti-covid vaccines and masks.

Trump continued to claim COVID would “just go away” into 2020, when he caught the disease and was treated at Walter Reed Hospital in October 2020.

He received the COVID vaccination and other treatments and was released on October 10, 2020.

He said, “I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good!

“Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge.”

Amazingly, even knowing firsthand the contagiousness of COVID, Trump continued to hold mass, maskless campaign events, at which hundreds of people caught COVID, many dying. 

Here is how one man, Donald Trump, managed to kill three hundred thousand Americans. On a related note, the GOP votes the death penalty for killing one American.

More than three hundred thousand Americans died because they refused to become vaccinated. They effectively committed suicide, possibly the largest suicide pact in world history.

Many more caught COVID because they refused to wear masks, though Trump was vaccinated and, for a short time, wore a mask.Trump seen wearing face mask in public for first time - CBS News

NPR reported people living in counties that voted for then-President Trump in the 2020 election were three times more likely to die from COVID-19 than people who lived in counties that voted for President Biden.

XIX. Student Debt”: As you read this section, remember that the U.S. government is Monetarily Sovereign, meaning it never can run short of dollars. Even if the federal government collected $0 taxes, it could afford to spend forever.

Thus, there never is a reason to lend dollars. The federal government has no need for returned dollars.

In September 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement began. The protest against income inequality, the wealthy, and their financial institutions, led by activists “representing 99 percent of Americans,” soon led to the Occupy Student Debt Campaign, which directed its ire at the country’s skyrocketing tuition costs and debt-fueled higher education system.

When student debt surpassed $1 trillion in April 2012, the Debt Collective, a debtor union, called for abolishing all student debt and implementing free college.

Calls to abolish all student debt resurfaced amid myriad legal challenges representing victims of predatory for-profit colleges, catching the attention and support of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Packaging people with debt that schools knew or should have known would be unrepayable began to look predatory.

Only about half of borrowers were in repayment in 2019. A quarter — or more than 10 million people — were in delinquency or default, and the rest had applied for temporary relief for struggling borrowers, including deferments or forbearances.

The right-wing side of the Supreme Court ruled against President Joe Biden’s plan that would have forgiven up to $20,000 worth of student loan debt per borrower in a 6-3 decision1.

The majority opinion was delivered by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who voted against the student loan forgiveness plan. Conservative Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett voted with Roberts.

All earlier had pledged their reverence for precedent.

XX. Obamacare: The common name for the Affordable Care  Act, is intended to make healthcare insurance more affordable for everyone by lowering costs for those who can’t afford them. The plan mandated that insurance companies include ten necessary benefits and paid the states to expand Medicaid coverage.

Twelve states rejected the plan; all GOP-dominated: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Their citizen continued to suffer from a lack of health care insurance. Before the ACA, insurance companies could exclude people with pre-existing conditions.

The GOP made several attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare.

The first attempt was in 2017 when Republicans tried to repeal and replace parts of Obamacare by spring. The House released an Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill called the American Health Care Act in March 20171. However, intraparty opposition quickly mounted, with some conservatives calling it “Obamacare 2.0.”

After winning control of the presidency, Senate, and House in the 2016 elections, Republicans attempted multiple times to repeal ACA but were unsuccessful.

XXI: Affirmative action is a policy or a set of procedures that aims to improve the educational or employment opportunities of certain demographic groups historically discriminated against or underrepresented in society.

It gives limited preference to qualified groups based on criteria such as race, gender, ethnic origin, disability, and age.

A 2013 Harvard study found that after affirmative action ended in critical states, “sharp declines” in the workplace followed for Asian women, Black women, and Hispanic men.

When the University of California system eliminated affirmative action in 1995, the number of Black and Latino students accepted by Berkeley and UCLA was cut by nearly half by 1998, the first year affected by the ban. 

There is theory, and there is reality. The theory is that all people should be treated equally. The reality is that certain groups never have been treated equally, and this unequal treatment of young children impacts them throughout their lives.

Affirmative action is a later attempt to undo the effects of early unfair treatment.

The Supreme Court decided 6-3 and 6-2 that race-conscious admission policies of the University of North Carolina and Harvard College violate the Constitution, effectively ending affirmative action in higher education through a decision that will reverberate across campuses nationwide.

The rulings fell along ideological lines. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion for both cases, and Justice Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh wrote concurring opinions. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has ties to Harvard and recused herself in that case but wrote a dissent in the North Carolina case. 

The ruling is the latest from the Supreme Court’s conservative majority that has upended decades of precedent, including overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

XXII. Conspiracy theories. No political party in history has been as enamored with idiotic conspiracy theories as has then GOP.

It begins with the obvious criminality of Donald Trump to which the Republican MAGAs haven blindfolded themselves. He  spouts so many lies that to support him you first must turn off your brain and be amenable to accepting the latest idiocy, whether it agrees with, or contradicts the previous idiocy.

Here excerpts from a wonderful article the explains the mental coma in which Trump followers live.

Hunter Biden “whistleblower” exposed as a fugitive and accused spy — but MAGA won’t budge
By Amanda Marcotte

In May, Rep. James Comer (rhymes with “coma”), R-Ky had admitted that his supposed “whistleblower” had gone missing.

(Earlier), Comer crowed that “the people on MSNBC who made fun of me when I said we had an informant” should “feel like fools right now,” because “a credible witness that the FBI flew all the way to Brussels to interview” was a-coming.

On Monday, the truth came out. Cormer’s supposed “informant,” Gal Luft, is not preparing his dramatic exposé of the Bidens. No, he’s actually on the run from the law, having been charged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) with illegal arms dealing and being a Chinese spy.

Of course, this egg on his face will not slow Comer down. Conspiracy theories are closed loop systems. When conflicting facts are presented, the conspiracist immediately declares not only are the facts fake,  but the fakery is further “proof” of the conspiracy.

One could see this happening in real time the second the federal authorities announced the charges against Luft on Twitter.

The contagion of conspiracy theories | The Seattle Times

MAGA diehards, declared with confidence that Luft is an innocent man being framed by the deep state. Not one of these people could pick Luft out of a lineup or could say anything about his life prior to this moment. Yet the invention of a new conspiracy theory about Luft’s arrest was not just automatic, it seemed as mindless as breathing.

It’s highly unlikely that either Comer or Mace believes their own B.S. Indeed, Comer joked earlier this year to New York Times reporters about how he is just making it up as he goes along.

“You know, the customer’s always right,” Mr. Comer said wryly, of his approach.

That’s the reason it’s so easy for not just Comer, but the entire GOP base, to reflexively roll up these charges into the ever-expanding conspiracy theory. Most of them don’t believe any of this crap.

Conspiracy theorists often contradict themselves in frankly comical ways:

As social psych researcher, Karen Douglas found that “the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered.” The more they “believed that Osama bin Laden was already dead when US special forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive.”

Throughout and since 2020, conspiracy theorists have said that Covid is at the same time a nonexistent hoax, a bug no more dangerous than the flu, and a deadly Chinese bioweapon. It didn’t matter to them that these things can’t be true at the same time.

For Comer and other MAGA Republicans, the actual belief is straightforward: They wish to destroy the legitimately elected president and replace him with Donald Trump, a wannabe fascist who attempted a coup.

With the Hunter Biden conspiracies, the most obvious aspect is that it’s impossible for anyone, even those who made it up, to follow what exactly is being alleged here.

According to a purported IRS whistleblower, U.S. Attorney David Weiss had been turned down when he requested special counsel status….

But now, Trump appointee Weiss, has stated unambiguously that none of these claims are true. He never requested to become special counsel and he was never blocked from bringing any charges or investigating aspects of the Hunter Biden case.

If you’re going cross-eyed trying to keep up, that’s the point of this ever-more-deranged GOP conspiracy theory: (make it impossible) to figure out what the hell Republicans are talking about in the first place.

This is all by design. If a conspiracy theory is easy to follow, it’s also easy to see its flaws. But if it’s so complicated that even efforts at straightforward debunking are bewildering, it’s hard to argue against it.

The vast majority of Trump’s crimes are simple enough to explain: Stealing classified documents. Tax fraud. Sexual assault. Attempting to steal an election. But the sheer number of Trump crimes is mind-boggling.

What the average Trump voter needs in order to justify themselves is a claim that “both sides” are corrupt. With so much Trump criminality to distract from, the lies about the Bidens need to be overwhelming.

Not that it’s a hard task to keep making crap up. After all, nothing Republicans say about Biden needs to make sense. It just needs to be noisy.

Sadly for the MAGA zombies, this all came to early, and will be forgotten by election time, so they will need to come up with even more brain-dead theories they can take with them to the polls.

Finally, if you enjoy farce, fiction, and fairy tales, you’ll love reading some of these astounding MAGA-believed flights of imagination: 20 Conspiracy Theories Trump Has Pushed Before and During His Presidency

SUMMARY

I believe the Republican Party, in concert with its Supreme Court political hacks, has worked on the wrong side of every important issue facing America.

I believe that the GOP is a party of bigots, voting against those who are not born white-supremacist, Christian, Americans and who are not wealthy.

As befits such a party, it has appointed to the Supreme Court a cadre of political hacks who vote a false, lockstep, “originalism” (but only when it supports the conservative, white-supremacist view) and ignores the reality of the pain their vote will cause.

Despite billing itself as “the party of law and order” and the party of religion, the GOP, in my opinion, is overstocked with lawbreakers from its top to its bottom.

As the “party of religion,” the GOP talks the talk but does not walk the walk. What religion is so callous as to deny support for the poor and besieged minorities while bending the knee to the rich?

The religion supported by the GOP is the one with Donald Trump as its God, a belief that omits then denies the rights of all other religions, agnostics, or atheists.

 

 

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.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

What is the appeal of Donald Trump?

People may ask, “Why is Donald Trump worshipped by so many people, given all his terrible traits?

Every time he is indicted for a crime, his followers seem to love him more. Why is that?

The answer is right in front of our noses.

First, the source of their bewilderment is the man himself. He is a psychopath — or, more correctly, a person with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).

He meets all 20 criteria from the old  Robert Hare Checklist of Psychopathy Symptoms. Used by many psychiatrists to evaluate patients.

More recent (and quite similar) criteria are:

  • behavior that conflicts with social norms
  • disregarding or violating the rights of others
  • inability to distinguish between right and wrong
  • difficulty with showing remorse or empathy
  • tendency to lie often
  • manipulating and hurting others
  • recurring problems with the law
  • general disregard toward safety and responsibility
  • expressing anger and arrogance regularly
  • tendency to engage in reckless, impulsive behavior that may have harmful consequences.

Here is a politician who:

  • is a draft dodger, lying about “heel spurs” to avoid military service while ostentatiously hugging the American flag
  • said that soldiers who gave their lives for America were “suckers.”
  • insulted the gold star family of one such soldier
  • cheated on three wives and divorced two of them
  • sexually attacked women and boasted about it
  • cheated thousands of students at Trump “University” (that wasn’t a university)
  • cheated on his income taxes with Trump Foundation.
  • claimed that COVID was “like the common cold that would just go away” (costing hundreds of thousands of Americans their lives)
  • denied global warming (delaying efforts to reduce carbon)
  • promoted GOYA products in violation of federal law
  • caused the Secret Service to stay at his hotels at inflated prices
  • cheated undocumented alien workers tearing down the Bonwit Teller building
  • repeatedly was fined millions in total for misdeeds regarding his ownership of gambling casinos
  • could have ended the coup attempt, but chose to let it continue, in hopes it would succeed.
    • was a nepotist who hired inexperienced family members to do critical political jobs
    • denied the election results that were verified in 50 court proceedings, many by judges he appointed
    • is a traitor who fomented an attempted coup to overturn the election results and continues to broadcast the lie that the election was dishonest
    • associated with, and gave pardons to, a vast number of criminals
    • Lied more than 30,000 times during his Presidency — more than twenty-one times a day

    And other scandals, any one of which would have derailed the political fortunes of most candidates.

    Trump has no morals, no conscience, no feelings of guilt, and no care for anyone but himself — the perfect psychopath.

    Psychopaths are difficult for ordinary people to understand. They say and do things at which an intelligent person only can shake his head in wonderment, not believing someone could be so alien.

    Why, then, are so many enraptured with him? Why does he draw crowds to his speeches, the size of which he falsely but routinely inflates? The answer: He appeals to three groups of people

    1. The rich and powerful who benefit from the laws he passed as President
    2. The people who wish to emulate the rich, notably the men who admire Trump’s overbearing misogyny.
    3. The bigots and haters, the largest group.

    Contrary to our preferred self-portrait, America (and indeed most nations) long has been home to bigots and haters.

    The Jews and blacks have been the scapegoats for all that is wrong at any given time. There have been periods when the Irish were demonized, the Italians, the Japanese, the Chinese, et al.

    Trump recognized that the two most potent and lasting human emotions are hatred and fear, each being a function of the other.

    Hatred comes from fear. Fear comes from hatred. Trump stokes both.

    He feeds the fear and hatred of immigrants and Latins in particular, all people of color, gays, Muslims, Chinese, Hillary Clinton, the FBI, the “deep state” (whoever that may be), non-Christians, the media (except the pro-Trump media).

    In short, Trump appeals to weak-minded bigots who believe he will protect them from the people they fear and despise. And Trump has made the entire spineless Republican Party complicit in his fear/hate agenda.

    Today’s anti-“woke” efforts by such hate-mongers as Ron DeSantis and Tucker Carlson constitute efforts to instill fear in the minds of the uneducated or bigoted that, in some never explained way, gay people will convert your children into being gay — but Trump, DeSantis, et al. will protect you.

    Similarly, Trump instills fear of Mexican “rapists,” Muslim “terrorists,” and the undefined “deep state” that helped “steal” the election.

    He tells his followers the Chinese, blacks, and women take jobs and college spots from white men, and they “unfairly” receive benefits from the government.

    By preying on the hatred and ignorance of the bigoted parts of the middle and lower classes, Trump builds a compliant following whose fears keep them loyal despite any wrong Trump commits.

    Those fears also demand that they carry guns everywhere to protect themselves from blacks they despise, which is why the Republican party refuses to consider even the most minor, benign gun control laws.

    It also is why the right-wing Supreme Court incorrectly omits the first 13 words of the 2nd Amendment as having no meaning whatsoever.

    (Meanwhile, the conservative justices who portray themselves as originalists discount that the framers originally thought “arms” were muzzle-loaded muskets and flintlock pistols. If those original weapons still were the weapons of choice, we would have virtually no mass killings.)

    Trump’s border wall entreaty is the pitch-perfect result of his warnings about menacing hordes of Mexican rapists and criminals invading our white land.

    Three groups — the rich, admirers of the rich, and the ignorant, fearful bigots — form Trump’s base. It is a base not just immune to reason, but rejecting any facts that do not support what their savior tells them.

    That concrete mindset is why ridiculous conspiracy theories emanating from such as QAnon, Tucker Carlson, the rest of the Fox News gang, Breitbart, Alex Jones, Glen Beck, along with the Holocaust deniers, the anti-vaxers, and others of that ilk can find welcome in Trump’s party.

    That third group, the ignorant, fearful, hate-mongering bigots, comprise much of the uber-religious who follow the dogma of their religion, no matter how unfactual, unscientific, and unbelievable it may be.

    In every sense, they are cult followers who cannot bring themselves to resist the siren song of the dictator. They are the fanatics, the true believers in Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Jim Jones, Luc Jouret, Marshall Applewhite, David Koresh — and Donald Trump.

    Nothing can change their minds. They react to any counter-evidence, not just with disbelief but with fury.

    Go on any Trumpist website and mention any fact unfavorable to Trump, and you will be met with a vitriol usually reserved for the most despicable among us.

    Yes, Trump indeed can shoot someone on 5th Ave. and not lose any followers. He was right about that.

    We only can be thankful that Donald Trump is one of the less intelligent cult leaders, so he repeatedly talks his way into criminal prosecutions that may dull his image among those not wholly hypnotized.

    Finally, in the unlikely event you are a Trump follower and have read this far in the article, which are you, a rich or admirer of the rich, or a hating, fearing bigot?

    Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

    Monetary Sovereignty

    Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

    ……………………………………………………………………..

    The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

    MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

    And the scare headlines continue

    I have been reading the Libertarian articles in Reason.com for several years and have noticed something odd. Despite ongoing claims that federal spending should be reduced, no data can support that myth. Like all other debt Henny Pennys, they focus on telling you how big the so-called debt is and how much will be spent on benefits. OK, we get it. The numbers are significant, but why are they bad? But there never is data. It is all speculation supported by more speculation. The following article is no exception:

    CBO Projects Huge Deficits, $116 Trillion in New Borrowing Over the Next 30 Years A new Congressional Budget Office report warns of “significant economic and financial consequences” caused by the federal government’s reckless borrowing. Merely paying the interest costs on the accumulated national debt will require a staggering 35 percent of annual federal revenue by the end of that time frame. | 6.29.2023 11:00 AM

    And what will those “significant economic consequences” be? And where is your evidence?

    The federal government is on pace to borrow $116 trillion over the next 30 years, and merely paying the interest costs on the accumulated national debt will require a staggering 35 percent of annual federal revenue by the end of that time frame.

    And that’s likely an optimistic scenario.

    Actually, it is an optimistic scenario. Mathematically, the more the federal government spends, the more the economy grows. Why? Because the economy is measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and:

    GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports

    That $116 trillion in “borrowing” is not borrowing. It is the acceptance of deposits into Treasury Security accounts. The U.S. federal government never borrows dollars. Why would it? The federal government has the infinite ability to create (aka “print”) dollars, so why would it ever need to borrow what it can create at no cost, especially since borrowing requires paying interest?

    Alan Greenspan: “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.”

    Statement from 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.”

    Get it, Libertarians? The U.S. government is not dependent on credit markets. It doesn’t borrow. Let me rephrase your comment: ” . . . merely paying the interest costs on the accumulated deposits into T-security accounts will require a staggering 35 percent of annual federal revenue by the end of that time frame.  Why is it “staggering” if Greenspan, Bernanke, and the St. Louis Fed say the government never can run out of dollars? Even if annual revenue totaled $0, the federal government could continue spending forever.

    Those sobering figures were published Wednesday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as part of the number-crunching agency’s new long-term budget outlook.

    The report once again points to an unsustainable fiscal trajectory driven by a federal government that’s addicted to borrowing—even as it becomes readily apparent that the bill is coming due.

    It’s Libertarian nonsense. Why is it “unsustainable”? And since the government never borrows, what is the “addiction”? And exactly what bill is “coming due”? The problem is Eric Boehm, and the rest of the Libertarians do not wish to acknowledge the fundamental difference between personal finance and federal finance. In short, they don’t seem to understand the difference between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty. And not understanding those fundamental differences means they don’t understand economics. At all. Are they being devious or simply ignorant? I don’t know. I vote for devious. In my opinion, they have an agenda and are just pretending to be ignorant.

    “Such high and rising debt would have significant economic and financial consequences,” the CBO warns.

    Among other things, the mountain of debt will “slow economic growth, drive up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, elevate the risk of a fiscal crisis, increase the likelihood of other adverse effects that could occur more gradually, and make the nation’s fiscal position more vulnerable to an increase in interest rates.”

    In what way does federal deficit spending “slow economic growth” when Federal Spending increases GDP by simple algebraic formula? As for interest payments, here’s the Libertarian theory: To acquire the dollars to pay its bills, the federal government needs to borrow. And because it needs to borrow so much, it has to raise interest rates to attract lenders. Wrong. The government never needs to borrow and, indeed, never borrows. The Fed determines the interest it pays on Treasury Securities, not to attract lenders but to regulate the economy. Example: Of late, interest on T-securities has gone up significantly, not because the Fed wants to attract more depositors, but because the Fed thinks that’s how to reduce inflation. Interest rates have nothing to do with the government needing dollars to pay its bills. As for foreign holders of U.S. “debt,” that is a convenience for foreigners. The Fed doesn’t give a fig whether Russia or China deposits dollars into Treasury Bill accounts. The purpose of those accounts is not to give America it own dollars. The purpose is to provide the Russians, Chinese et al. a safe place to deposit unused dollars. Further, what is the “fiscal crisis” the CBO worries about? The government always can pay its bills. If a creditor were to demand that the U.S. federal government pay $100 Trillion tomorrow, a functionary at the Federal Reserve would press a computer key, and the $100 Trillion instantly would be transferred to the creditor’s account. The CBO’s erroneous claims end with: ” . . . increase the likelihood of other adverse effects that could occur more gradually, and make the nation’s fiscal position more vulnerable to an increase in interest rates.” We don’t know what the “other adverse effects” supposedly are. We suspect the CBO has no idea, either. Finally, the federal government’s fiscal position is invulnerable. It can pay any bill of any size at any time it chooses.

    The formula for massive deficits and unsustainable levels of borrowing is actually pretty simple: federal spending that far exceeds what the government collects in tax revenue.

    Because the federal government has the infinite ability to create U.S. dollars, it neither needs nor even uses tax revenue to pay its bills. So why does it collect taxes at all? Three reasons:
    1. To control the economy by taxing what it wishes to discourage and giving tax breaks to what it wishes to encourage.
    2. To assure demand for the U.S. dollar and thus stabilize the dollar by requiring taxes to be paid in dollars.
    3. To make the public believe federal spending is limited by taxes and reduce public requests for benefits
    As for #3, the rich who run America do not want the non-rich to receive the benefits that would narrow the Gap between the rich and the rest. The Gap makes the rich rich; the wider the Gap, the richer they are.

    Over the past 30 years, federal spending has averaged 21 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a rough measure of the size of the whole American economy, while tax revenue has averaged 17.2 percent, the CBO notes. That’s not great, but the future looks much worse.

    By 2053, the CBO expects federal spending to grow to 29.1 percent of GDP while revenue climbs to just 19.1 percent.

    Source: Congressional Budget Office (https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59331)

    From being exposed to the above table, you might be led to believe that Federal Spending/GDP or federal taxes/GDP are essential measures. They aren’t. The first fraction tells you how much the federal government spends vs. the domestic private sector. What can you do with that information? Not much. You might wish to increase private sector spending, probably requiring federal tax reduction, which is almost always a good idea. And you should increase exports which need federal aid to exporters, though that might run afoul of international agreements. What you do not want to do is cut federal spending. That will only reduce GDP, which would only make it worse if you are concerned about the Federal Spending/GDP fraction. As for the Federal Taxes/GDP fraction, the analysis is straightforward. The more significant the fraction, the worse will be economic growth. Sadly, the CBO complains that the fraction will be getting smaller — Federal Spending will grow faster than GDP — and here is the crucial part: GDP is projected to grow. Even more importantly, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP has been growing per capita. That means despite all the moaning and groaning from the Libertarians and the CBO, Americans are getting richer. Here are the data:
    Real Per Capita Gross Domestic Product
    That, my friends, is a picture of a healthy economy — uh, except for this:
    The GINI index shows the distribution of wealth. A level of “0” would mean everyone has the same wealth. A level of “1” would mean one person has all the wealth. The graph shows the rich getting more affluent than the rest of us, with only a small drop from 2019 to 2020.
    Keep the GINI index in mind when you read about the Libertarians and the Republicans wanting to cut “Entitlements” (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid), school lunch programs, and other poverty aids. The oft-quoted Federal Debt/GDP ratio is equally meaningless. It compares the amount deposited into T-security accounts by foreign nations, domestic companies, and Americans (aka “Federal Debt) vs. the amount spent by Americans and net imports. This ratio often is cited as something to be concerned about. Yet it has no predictive or analytic value. A low ratio is neither a sign of a healthy nor sick economy. It is not a prediction of the future nor a measure of the past. GDP doesn’t pay for Federal Debt, and Federal Debt doesn’t pay for GDP. Yet some so-called “economists” wring their hands when the ratio increases. The only relationship between the two is when Federal Debt increases, which helps GDP increase, though all the bleating about this ratio would make you think otherwise.

    Entitlements are the primary driver of that future spending surge. Social Security spending will rise from about 5 percent of GDP to about 6.2 percent over the next 30 years. Costs for Medicare and Medicaid will jump from 5.8 percent of GDP to 8.6 percent by 2053.

    And there it is. The right-wing pitch is to reduce Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The purpose is to widen further the Gap between the rich and the rest.

    Financing the national debt will become a major share of federal spending in the next few decades. The CBO projects that interest payments on the debt will cost $71 trillion over the next 30 years and consume more than one-third of all federal revenue by the 2050s.

    As Greenspan, Bernanke, and the St. Louis Fed reminded us, it costs the U.S. government nothing to create those dollars; that dollar creation has been enriching Americans for decades.

    “America’s fiscal outlook is more dangerous and daunting than ever, threatening our economy and the next generation,” Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which advocates for fiscal responsibility, said in a statement.

    The group responded to the new CBO report by renewing its calls for a bipartisan fiscal commission to consider plans for stabilizing the debt.

    To a rich guy like Michael A. Peterson, “fiscal responsibility” means soaking the poor and middle-income groups while giving tax breaks to the rich. Stabilizing the debt” means creating recessions and depressions, during which the rich will buy all those low-priced assets to increase domination over the rest of us. Here is precisely what happens when we “stabilize the debt” as rich Mr. Peterson wishes”
    When federal “Debt” growth (red) declines (“Debt” is stabilized), we have recessions (gray bars). To cure recessions, the government increases “Debt.” GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports.

    The national debt reached a record high of 106 percent as a share of GDP during World War II. The CBO projects the record to be broken in 2029, and the debt will keep climbing—to 181 percent of GDP by 2053.

     
    A meaningless graph that tells you nothing about the U.S. economy yesterday, today, or tomorrow.
    Even something called the “World Population Review” is hypnotized by this meaningless ratio. Here is what they say:

    Typically used to determine the stability and health of a nation’s economy, the debt-to-GDP ratio is expressed as a percentage and offers an at-a-glance estimate of a country’s ability to pay back its current debts.

    And here are the examples they give:

    Top 12 Countries with the Highest Debt-to-GDP Ratios

    Venezuela — 350% Japan — 266% Sudan — 259% Greece — 206% Lebanon — 172% Cabo Verde — 157% Italy — 156% Libya — 155% Portugal — 134% Singapore — 131% Bahrain — 128% United States — 128%

    Top 12 Countries with the Lowest Debt-to-GDP Ratios (%)

    Brunei — 3.2% Afghanistan — 7.8% Kuwait — 11.5% Congo (Dem. Rep.) — 15.2% Eswatini — 15.5% Burundi — 15.9% Palestine — 16.4% Russia — 17.8% Botswana — 18.2% Estonia — 18.2%

    Isn’t it nice to know that all these countries — Russia, Afghanistan, Botswana, et al. — supposedly are more stable and healthy and better able to pay back their current debts than the United States and Japan? It must be true because that is what the Libertarians, the CBO. Michael A. Peterson and the World Population Review are telling you. So be sure to tell all your creditors not to pay you dollars because you’d rather receive Russian rubles. Right?

    The (CBO’s) projections leave out the possibility that Congress will extend the Trump administration’s tax cuts past their planned expiration in 2025—which would add to the deficit and require more borrowing in the future—or the possibility that Social Security’s impending insolvency will be papered over with yet more borrowing.

    The United States cannot become insolvent. Per Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.” Because the U.S. can’t become insolvent, Social Security, a federal agency, can only become insolvent if that is what Congress and the President want. What the author calls “papered over” normal people would call “paying for,” which the government can do simply by pressing a computer key.

    And do you really believe that no Congress or president will hike spending without offsetting tax increases in the next three decades?

    If Congress and the President increase taxes they will not “offset” anything. Federal taxes do not fund federal spending. They are destroyed upon receipt, and new dollars are created ad hoc to pay for expenditures.

    Under an alternative scenario in which the Trump administration’s tax cuts are extended, and federal spending grows at the same rate as the economy (rather than in line with inflation, as the CBO assumes), the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projects the debt to hit 222 percent of GDP by 2053.

    And that 222 percent will have no meaning.

    There’s one shred of good news inside the CBO’s latest report, however. Compared to last year, long-term borrowing is expected to be slightly lower. That resulted from the debt ceiling deal struck last month between Congress and the White House.

    The deal included spending caps on nondefense discretionary spending for the next two years, and even that minimal bit of fiscal responsibility can have a measurable impact on future deficits.

    This is terrible news. A limit on spending growth is, by definition, a limit on economic growth. Could you remember the formula for measuring the economy?

    Still, the modest decline in future deficits mainly illustrates the daunting size of the federal government’s debt problem. By 2053, the debt will more than double the size of America’s economy—and, again, that’s only if you assume borrowing won’t increase for any reason in the next three decades.

    “This level of debt would be truly unprecedented,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in a statement. “Time is of the essence; we simply cannot afford to keep borrowing at this unsustainable rate.”

    May MacGuineas is another Henny Penny paid by the rich to claim that the middle and poor should receive less money. Good heavens, one needs to learn only five simple facts, and even that seems to be too much for the economic “experts.”
    1. Gross Domestic Product (the economy) = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports
    2. The U.S. government (unlike state/local governments, euro nations, businesses, you, and me) is Monetarily Sovereign. It, and any of its agencies, can only run short of its sovereign currency if Congress and the President will it.
    3. Federal taxes (unlike state/local government taxes) pay for nothing. They are destroyed upon receipt by the Treasury.
    4. Having the infinite ability to create dollars, the government never borrows. The so-called “debt” actually is deposited into T-security accounts. Those dollars remain the depositor’s property, never used by the federal government for anything, and “paid off” by returning them to the owners.
    5. Inflation never is caused by money creation. It always is caused by shortages of crucial goods and services, most often oil and food.
    If you understand these five facts, you know more than most economists, politicians, and media writers. Just five things. Is that so hard? Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

    ……………………………………………………………………..

    The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

    MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

    And the winner of the nonsense contest: VERONIQUE DE RUGY

    I’m going to assume that Veronique de Rugy is intelligent. I make that assumption as a courtesy because her writing doesn’t show it. As is usual with Libertarians, she ignores the formula for Gross Domestic Product:

    GDP = Federal Spending + NonFederal Spending + Net Exports

    She insists that in some magical way cutting Federal Spending will grow GDP. I wonder where or if she learned algebra. Do you enjoy claims having no facts to back them up? If so, you’ll love the excerpts from this article:
    Veronique de Rugy

    The Next President Needs To Cut Spending At a minimum, the national debt should be smaller than the size of the economy. A committed president just might be able to deliver. VERONIQUE DE RUGY | 6.29.2023 1:35 PM

    Why should the national debt be smaller than the size of the economy? What are the data? Let’s clear up a few terms. First, she means “federal” rather than “national” debt, which would include all the debt in the nation — personal borrowing, business borrowing, and state/local government borrowing. Second, it isn’t debt. The government didn’t borrow it. It’s deposits into T-security accounts, the contents of which never are touched by federal agencies. The dollars, which belong to depositors, are “paid off” by returning them, untouched, to their owners. If the federal government chose to, it could simply pay off the “debt” (hat isn’t debt) tomorrow by returning those untouched dollars. Debt comes from borrowing, and the federal government never borrows. It accepts deposits. Being Monetarily Sovereign, the government has the infinite ability to create U.S. dollars. It never unintentionally can run short of dollars to pay its bills. So worry not that China suddenly will demand the return of its loans (that are not loans). A click of a computer key would debit their T-security accounts and credit their checking account (at the Federal Reserve Bank.) “Debt” paid. Third, what data tells her those deposits should be less than GDP? De Rugy never says. She just claims it’s her feeling, intuition, or something. Having no data is what passes for data in the Libertarianverse. Back to the article:

    Election season is getting into gear, and that means politicians of all stripes making promises about what they’ll do for the American people if elected or reelected.

    I’d like to hear promises to get government out of the way and allow entrepreneurship and market competition to spur genuine and sustainable economic growth, including in the energy and housing sectors.

    Reminder: Economic growth is GDP growth. But given the mathematical formula for GDP, how does cutting Federal Spending increase GDP? It doesn’t. Not only is Federal Spending one of the terms in the equation, but it also spurs increases in the other terms, Nonfederal Spending and Net Exports. When the federal government spends, it becomes a customer of the private sector, which uses the dollars received for growth. In short, Federal Spending increases GDP directly and indirectly.

    This may be what America needs most, but I will settle for a promise to ensure that the national debt stays smaller than the size of the economy. A committed president just might be able to deliver.

    She may “settle” for such a promise, but why? To the penny, the national (federal) debt is precisely what the federal government wishes it to be, neither more nor less. The government offers as much in T-securities as it wishes, merely as an accounting book-balancing method, not to obtain dollars. No more is offered than that, so no one can deposit more than offered. But what happens when not enough people wish to make deposits? No problem. The Federal Reserve makes the necessary deposits. One branch of the government adds to the “debt” if the “debt” is not large enough to balance the other branch’s books. Does the left-hand “lending” to the right sound like real debt to you?

    I never thought I’d be happy with keeping the debt no higher than 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). I’m more of a “cut the hell out of all this everything” kind of girl.

    Her “cut the hell out of everything” has been tried several times. Here is what it has accomplished:

    All U.S. depressions have come on the heels of federal surpluses.

    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.

    President Clinton boasts about his cuts to federal spending. He was lucky. He only caused a recession. Had the cuts lasted longer, he wouldn’t have been so fortunate. And by the way, Ms de Rugy, what does the government do to cure recessions? Right, it increases deficit spending. Have you ever stopped to think why?
    When federal “debt” growth (red) declines, we have recessions (gray bars). To cure recessions, the government increases deficit spending. GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports.
    Look at the graph and the table above it, and decide what will happen if Ms. de Rugy gets her “cut the hell out of everything” wish.

    Compromise is particularly hard to swallow considering that way back in 2007, before the Great Recession and long before all the pandemic spending, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio was about 60 percent, and I thought that was too high.

    Why did she “think” it was too high? She never says. It’s just her intuition.

    However, age has taught me the value of perspective. At the end of 2022, the U.S. national debt stood at 97 percent of GDP.

    Ms. de Rugy ignores the fact that during this 60% to 97% ratio increase, the economy grew massively:
    In the 2007 – 2023 period that de Rugy complains about, the economy almost doubled!
    Even if we allow for inflation and population growth, the economy still grew massively:
    From 2007, the REAL (inflation-adjusted) economy grew PER CAPITA by about 20%. That’s a real per-person increase.
    Ms. de Rugy continues to ignore facts in favor of her quasi-religious faith that somehow, in some way, reducing federal spending simply must be good. Methinks she is hypnotized by the word “debt,” and confused by the difference between federal finances and personal finances. So between being hypnotized and confused, the poor thing is a mess.

    Prior to that, it touched triple digits. In 10 years’ time, the number is expected to grow to 115 percent. The fiscal beast reaches 200 percent in 30 years.

    The federal spending that grew the economy now has become a “beast”? Huh?

    Even this projection is too optimistic since it assumes undisturbed prosperity, low interest rates, no new programs, no emergencies, and low inflation.

    It also assumes that the Department of the Treasury will find buyers, at low interest rates, for $114 trillion in extra debt. Yeah, right.

    None of those assumptions has been made. Just look at history. The real GDP has grown through all interest rate levels, new programs, emergencies, and even inflation. And as stated earlier, if the Department of the Treasury can’t “find buyers” for its T-securities, it will raise interest rates, and/or the Federal Reserve will buy them, as it always has. No problem.

    Keeping debt no higher than GDP is a better and more realistic objective than the usual Republican sound-bite promise of balancing the budget—not counting entitlement and defense spending—in 10 years.

    Balancing the budget is neither more nor less ignorant than Ms. de Rugy’s magic “debt=100%- of-GDP “plan.” Both would lead to depressions. These programs are called “austerity,” which has been the engine of destruction for the euro nations.

    This would require the implementer to cut non-excluded appropriations by 15 percent, 20 percent, or 30 percent relatively quickly, a remarkably unrealistic idea considering most government programs are supported by powerful interest groups who fight tooth and nail against any proposed cuts.

    Such political promises don’t end up happening.

    Yes, thankfully, Ms. de Rugy’s plan is unlikely, though the ignorante in Congress no doubt will continue to promise austerity to those who don’t understand federal financing.

    So here we are. I would be impressed if any politicians hitting the campaign trail promise what I’m asking for.

    If absolute stupidity impresses you, Ms. de Rugy, you have my sympathy.

    The Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards calculated that staying under a 100 percent debt-to-GDP ratio would require a $6 trillion reduction in spending over the coming decade, or about 8 percent of what’s projected.

    Raise your hand if you can guess what a $6 trillion reduction in federal spending would cause. If you answered, “The damndest depression we ever had,” you get an A+ for the course.

    While politicians will claim this will eviscerate the budget, in reality, it would merely slow the growth rate of federal outlays, which would still rise from $6.4 trillion this year to about $8.6 trillion in 2033.

    As Edwards noted to me, “That would be an aggressive cut from an Establishment perspective, but a nice goal for congressional reformers.”

    No, it’s a foolish, though typical, Libertarian goal for congressional simpletons.

    The politics will be harder than the reductions. Think about the hardship it was for Republicans and Democrats to reach a debt ceiling deal that will, at best, reduce the growth trend of spending by around $2 trillion over ten years.

    (That’s assuming the caps placed on spending hold and a spending-addicted Congress doesn’t abuse the emergency loophole built into the plan. I wouldn’t bet my house, or even my garden hose, on that.)

    And by the way, Veronique, did I mention that GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports? Oh, I already did? But did you understand what that means? I guess not:

    Democrats aren’t interested in fiscal discipline, while Republicans’ understanding of it mostly focuses on big tax cuts paid with public debt.

    “Fiscal discipline” is not applying leeches to cure anemia, or withholding food to cure hunger. Fiscal disipline is spending more where it will benefit the people more and spending less where the only benefit comes to the very rich. That’s discipline. The Republican tax cuts for the rich are not paid with “public” debt. (By “public debt,” she means “federal debt,” not state/local government debt, which unlike federal “debt” is real debt. But the explanation undoubtedly would be too much for her to comprehend.) Anyway, federal “debt” pays for nothing. It’s just a book-balancing device. The government could stop collecting taxes and continue spending forever if it wished. The sole purposes of federal taxes are:
    1. To control the economy by taxing what the government wishes to discourage and by giving tax breaks to what the government wishes to encourage.
    2. To increase demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring taxes be paid in dollars.
    3. To make the public believe dollars are scarce to the government, which if true, would make benefits unaffordable. This is to discourage the public from asking for benefits.

    The literature on austerity reveals that the most effective way to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio without affecting the economy too much or for longis to adopt fiscal adjustment packages that consist mostly of spending cuts.

    Packages based on entitlement reforms are more politically challenging but also yield much better results. Considering that Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are the drivers of debt growth, reforming these programs must play a significant role.

    She admits austerity affects the economy, but she doesn’t want to do it “too much or for too long.” She just wants to injurethe economy a little and for a short time — or something. Veronique, the literature on austerity reveals it always, always, always causes economic hardship. Whether you do it with spending cuts or tax increases, the result always is terrible. Ask the Euro nations how it has worked for them. Compare their economic growth with that of the U.S. When Veronique tells you about “reforming” Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, understand that “reforming” is the liar’s word for cutting these benefits. The liars simply are too dishonest to say what they mean.

    There are other ways, too. The Committee for a Responsible Budget, for instance, has a plan to stabilize the debt by cutting $7 trillion—including interest savings—over ten years.

    Sixty percent of the reduction comes from the spending side, including entitlement reform, while the rest comes from revenue increases (including closing special interest tax breaks). Others will have more plans. It’s not my preferred path, but it’s a path.

    The CRFB is a notorious organization supported by the rich to widen the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest. It has been spouting the same austerity nonsense since Hector was a pup (For you younguns, that’s a long time ago.)

    Setting a debt level that doesn’t exceed GDP is a realistic and doable goal. That’s precisely what we should want from someone seeking to be our president.

    It may be doable but foolish, precisely what we never should want from someone seeking to be our President. By the way, Veronique, where are the data showing that austerity grows the economy, that the Debt/GDP ratio is too high, or that Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security should be “reformed.” Oh, you have none? None at all? Then kindly STFU. Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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