What Libertarians want you to believe

Cameron Craig: “Libertarians are non-interventionists and strong advocates for property rights, free immigration, legalizing all drugs and prostitution. “Libertarians are against taxes, any form of social benefits and believe everyone must pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. “The core tenet of libertarianism is that one’s liberty and right to own property should never be infringed upon.

Reason.com, is a voice of Libertarianism. Read what they say about the National “Debt.” Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate talks about campaign on Action Line - KINY

Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate talks about campaign on Action Line - KINY

Hey, Nancy Pelosi: ‘National Debt Should Be a Top Priority’ A bipartisan group of lawmakers are calling for two deficit-reduction ideas to be included in this year’s federal budget bill. ERIC BOEHM | 2.23.2022 2:40 PM

Immediately, you see that Eric Boehm is spouting ignorance, and I’m not referring to his incorrect use of “are” rather than “is.” The national “debt” isn’t a priority; it shouldn’t even be a mild concern. In fact, it’s not “debt.” It’s the total of deposits into Treasury security accounts, which resemble interest-paying, bank safe-deposit boxes. When you invest in a T-bill, T-note, or T-bond, you deposit your dollars into your T-security account. The federal government neither needs, uses, nor touches your dollars, and when your account matures, your dollars are sent back to you. No tax dollars are involved. As with the contents of safe-deposit boxes, the government doesn’t owe anyone the deposits in T-security accounts. Neither do you owe them. Nor do your grandchildren owe them. They are not a financial burden on anyone or anything. So why would a thinking person tell you they are a “priority”? And as for so-called “deficits,” they represent the net growth dollars our Monetarily Sovereign government pumps into the economy. The U.S. government has infinite dollars to give; the economy needs growth dollars in order to grow. Without federal “deficits” we have recessions and depressions, all of which are cured by “deficits.” Reductions in federal debt growth lead to inflation

Reductions in federal debt growth lead to inflation

Recessions (vertical bars) follow REDUCTIONS in deficit growth. Recessions are cured by INCREASES in deficit growth.

Mr. Boehm’s article begins with faulty premises, and only goes downhill from there. He asks:

How are we actually going to pay for all this?

“We” (you, and I, and the government) are not going to pay for “all this.” As each T-security account reaches maturity, the dollars that reside in those accounts will be transferred to the owners’ checking accounts, upon request. It’s a simple dollar transfer. No new dollars are needed. And even if the federal government did owe the money, it has infinite dollars with which to pay any financial obligation. Mr. Boehm’s (and the rest of the Libertarians’) deficit/debt concern is based on the Big Lie that federal finances resemble state/local government finances and personal finances. But the federal government uniquely is Monetarily Sovereign, while you, all local governments and all businesses are monetarily non-sovereign. The Libertarians don’t want you to understand that a Monetarily Sovereign entity never unintentionally can run short of its own sovereign currency. Even if the federal government collected $0 taxes, it could continue spending, forever. (The purpose of federal taxes is not to finance spending. The purpose is to control the economy. Taxes discourage what the government doesn’t want, and tax breaks encourage what the government does want.) The federal government does not borrow dollars. The so-called “national debt” is not a debt to be repaid.

In a letter sent on Tuesday, 24 members of the House of Representatives called on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) to take some small but important steps to rein in America’s out-of-control national debt.

The misnamed “national debt” (that isn’t a debt), also isn’t “out of control” and doesn’t need to be “reined in.” The federal government controls to the penny, how many T-security dollars to accept from the public. To prevent the public’s T-security account deposits from growing higher than desired, the federal government can lower interest rates. That discourages further deposits. Or the Federal Reserve can use its infinite dollar-creation abilities to take the public’s place (what the uninformed would term “borrowing from itself.”) Similarly, if in its wisdom, the Federal Reserve decides deposits should be higher, it can increase interest rates, or again, the Federal Reserve can increase deposits. The source of Mr. Boehm’s disinformation is the wrongheaded belief that the federal government borrows when its tax income is insufficient to pay its bills. That “income vs. borrowing” scenario is true of state and local governments. It also is true of businesses. And it is true of you and me. We borrow when cash at hand is insufficient. It is not true of our Monetarily Sovereign, U.S. federal government. It has infinite cash at hand. Here is what knowledgeable people say about Monetary Sovereignty:

Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”

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.”

Quote from Ben Bernanke when, as Fed chief, he was on 60 Minutes: Scott Pelley: Is that tax money that the Fed is spending? Ben Bernanke: It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.

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.”

Press Conference: Mario Draghi, President of the ECB, 9 January 2014 Question: I am wondering: can the ECB ever run out of money? Mario Draghi: Technically, no. We cannot run out of money.

Messrs. Greenspan, Bernanke, and Draghi, and the St. Louis Fed, were describing Monetary Sovereignty, the unlimited ability of a Monetarily Sovereign entity to create its own sovereign currency. The U.S. government not only has this unlimited ability, but it also has the unlimited ability to determine, by fiat, the value of the U.S. dollar, an ability it has exercised many times over the years, when fixing the dollar to varying amounts of silver and gold. Thus, the U.S. federal government has the absolute power to control inflation. So why do T-bills, T-notes, and T-bonds even exist? The federal government’s spending and income are recorded in what is known as the “General Fund.” It’s not really a “fund.” It’s just a bookkeeping record. But for historical reasons, having to do with a young nation needing acceptance for its money, this record is not allowed to have a negative balance. It’s an obsolete law. There is no current reason why the General Fund, or any bookkeeping item can’t have a negative balance. But the convoluted workaround for this obsolete law is to pretend to borrow by issuing Treasury securities, and allowing the public to invest in them, with the balance being purchased by the government itself. It’s all bookkeeping hocus-pocus, to satisfy an obsolete set of rules, originally designed to prevent what mathematically cannot ever happen: Unintended federal insolvency. Today, the functional purpose for issuing T-securities is to provide a safe interest-paying parking place for unused dollars, which helps to stabilize the value of the U.S. dollar.

The letter highlights the fact that policies enacted during the past five years—including pandemic relief, but also “Congress’ perennially broken budget process and fiscal policies”—have added $13 trillion to the projected levels of debt in 2031, at the end of the 10-year window Congress uses for budgeting.

Mr. Boehm is referring to $13 trillion federal growth dollars, without which the economy would fall into the deepest depression in world history.

“It has been over a decade since Congress enacted any legislation that significantly addressed these longstanding structural problems or improved the nation’s fiscal outlook,” the lawmakers wrote to Pelosi. “Our national debt should be a top priority for both parties and addressed on a bipartisan basis.”

The misnamed “debt” neither is a structural problem, nor a “priority,” and it has nothing to do with a “fiscal outlook.” It’s all lies.

Yes, the letter represents the view of just 24 of the House’s 435 members. Still, any discussion of the debt and the need to address it is welcome.

It is encouraging that only 24 of the House’s 435 members are misinformed or dishonest enough to sign such a letter.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now forecasts that the debt will be twice the size of the economy by 2051, while the Government Accountability Office (GAO) predicts that the debt will grow to four times the size of America’s economy before the end of the century.

Here, Mr. Boehm referred to the most ridiculous, nonsensical, meaningless ratio in all of economics: The debt/GDP ratio. It is a ratio that says nothing about the health of the economy (see Debt to GDP Ratio by Country 2022). It is a ratio that predicts nothing. It isn’t even mathematically logical, because it describes different time sequences. “Debt” is the net accumulation of deficits during the past two centuries, while GDP refers to one year.

“U.S. fiscal policy today is not sustainable,” argue Veronique de Rugy and Jack Salmon, researchers at the Mercatus Center, a free market think tank, in a new report published Wednesday. “Not only is our debt ratio at the highest level in peacetime history, but also our future budgetary outlook is even bleaker.”

The two researchers from the Libertarian Mercatus Center imply that the federal government can run short of its own sovereign currency, a fiscal impossibility. And the “not sustainable” trope has been disseminated, without evidence, since at least 1940. See: “Your periodic reminder. After 80 years, the federal debt still is a ‘ticking time bomb.’ Libertarians were wrong then. They are wrong now. The federal “debt,” far from being a priority, or a problem or a burden on future generations, is an absolute necessity for economic growth — the larger the “debt” (i.e. net deficits), the faster the growth.

Perhaps it was the symbolic $30 trillion debt threshold that has prompted some lawmakers to call on Pelosi to take action. But another factor is the high levels of inflation America is currently experiencing. As Reason has previously explained, inflation and high debt create a trap for policymakers: higher inflation could lead the Federal Reserve raise interest rates, which would increase the payments owed on the debt.

Because Libertarians seem to think that all federal spending is excessive, the notion that the federal government would pay more interest into the economy upsets them. In reality however, there is no downside to increased federal interest. The government has infinite dollars, and the economy benefits from additional dollars. Contrary to the Libertarian philosophy of ignorance, federal spending is stimulative, and also contrary to popular wisdom, not inflationary. Inflations never are caused by “too much money.” Inflations always are caused by shortages of key goods and services. Those shortages, and the resultant inflation, can be cured by increased federal spending to encourage the availability of the scarce goods and services. Today’s inflation is an example: Current shortages of oil, computer chips, food, shipping, and lumber can be cured by federal aid to oil production, computer chips, farming, and lumber. Current shortages of labor can be cured by the elimination of FICA and income taxes, which serve only to reduce the reward for work. Fighting inflation with deficit reduction, would lead to recession.

Regardless of the reasons, the 24 lawmakers who signed this week’s letter are asking for two policies that are the lowest of low-hanging fruit.

First, they are seeking the creation of a bipartisan debt commission, similar to one implemented during President Barack Obama’s first term that helped trigger modest reductions in annual budget deficits following the Great Recession.

I’m not sure what economy Mr. Boehm lives in, but the Great Recession was cured by massive increases in federal deficit spending, which then returned to average levels, only to rise again to combat COVID. Mr. Boehm closes his article with a summary of ignorance and disinformation:

Lawmakers are asking Pelosi to include in the budget changes to how the debt ceiling operates.

The proposed changes would allow the president to unilaterally lift the debt limit as long as Congress has passed a budget resolution that contains certain debt-reduction measures for the current year.

Raising the debt ceiling is not the same as adding to the debt. The debt ceiling merely authorizes the Treasury to borrow funds to pay for spending already approved by Congress.

Objections to increasing the debt ceiling amount to little more than a refusal to pay overdue credit card bills—a temper tantrum that doesn’t address the actual problem of overspending.

Mr. Boehm is correct that the debt ceiling doesn’t address anything, much less the mythical problem of “overspending.” Rather than recommending the end of this laughable anachronism, Mr. Boehm supports Presidential fiddling with the debt ceiling:

“(Deficit cuts) . . . won’t fix America’s fiscal mess, but they are “commonsense ideas” that “would be important steps in the right direction,” according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that advocates for reducing the deficit.

And they are steps that the country will have to take, sooner or later. “We owe it to our children,”the lawmakers wrote to Pelosi, “to acknowledge our country’s unsustainable fiscal trajectory and work together, across the aisle, to address it over time.”

Yes, Boehm delivers a final dose of utter BS. The ideas neither are “commonsense” nor are they “important steps in the right direction.” Our children do not owe, nor will they pay for the federal “debt.” Instead, if the debt is reduced our children will be punished by the resultant recessions and depressions. And, the country’s “fiscal trajectory” (presumably, he means rising “debt”) is not “unsustainable.” It’s necessary. Here is what happens whenever we reduce the “debt.”

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.

Libertarians are the kissin’ cousins of Republican conservatives. Birds fly. Fish swim. Libertarians lie. Apparently, those are three constants in nature. Why do the Libertarians lie about the federal “debt”? Go back to one of the tenets of Liberalism: “Libertarians are against taxes, any form of social benefits and believe everyone must pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.“ Libertarians want the federal “debt” reduced, and the easiest way to accomplish that is to cut such social benefits as Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, poverty aids, etc. Rather than complain about social benefits, which the populace loves (and the government has the infinite ability to provide), Libertarians find it easier to complain about so-called “debt” and deficits. By convincing the public that “debt” and deficits must be cut, the Libertarians are able to justify cutting benefits to the middle- and lower-income groups. It’s the backdoor way of making the rich richer by widening the Gap between the rich and the rest. Thus, Libertarians are Republicans in disguise, pretending to be a middle-ground compromise between liberals and conservatives, but in fact, being as right wing, pro-rich, anti-middle, anti-poor as any Republican, perhaps more so. [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:

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

The only way to teach children right from wrong

“Right” and “wrong” are social conventions that differ among societies. Canibals think eating people is just fine. Aztecs supposedly enjoyed ripping out hearts. Slavery was de rigueur in America. You were not born knowing right from wrong. You learned from your family and friends. You learned from your schools and other outside sources.

There is only one way to teach children right from wrong. Children must be taught what is right and taught what is wrong. They must be taught the truth.

So, for instance, if your family and friends were bigots — — i.e. intolerant of people because of their race, religion, or sexual orientation — and your schools said nothing about bigotry, you probably would have become a bigot. Why would your family and friends teach you bigotry? Because their families and friends taught them bigotry, a chain extending down through the generations, families and friends teaching bigotry as a standing tradition. Why would your schools say nothing? Perhaps because of laws that prevented them from teaching you right from wrong, for fear you would find such teaching “uncomfortable.” Although you, like most people, probably harbor some forms of bigotry in your heart, you probably also agree that bigotry, in general, is a sin. How do we solve that dichotomy and break the historical chain? I was reminded of that question when some years ago, on a visit to Germany, I toured the Dachau concentration camp.

Dachau’s commandant, Theodor Eicke, introduced a system of regulations which inflicted brutal punishments on prisoners for the slightest offenses, while scientists there conducted cruel experiments. Prisoners were subjected to injections of malaria and tuberculosis, and the untold thousands that died from hard labor or torture were routinely burned in the on-site crematorium. As Allied units approached, at least 25,000 prisoners from the Dachau camp system were force-marched south. During these death marches, the Germans shot anyone who could no longer continue; many also died of starvation, hypothermia, or exhaustion. When American forces liberated Dachau, they found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies.

I was able to tour the camp because the German government neither hid nor denied the existence of the horrors committed there. In fact, they use the camp as a reminder of the past, to help prevent a repeat. A movie describing in detail, the horrors of the camp, is shown to daily busloads of German school children as a right-vs.-wrong lesson. The German people, but for a small minority, do not celebrate the misdeeds of Naziism. There are no statues of Hitler in Germany. The Holocaust is revealed and decried. The Germans do not fear admitting this dark period of their history. In fact, they actively teach it. I think of that approach to the shameful parts of Germany’s heritage when I compare it to the American — or rather, the right-wing — approach to the horrors of our past and even of our present.

Nearly 100 Confederate Monuments Removed In 2020, Report Says; More Than 700 Remain : NPR

Slavery was an abomination that was celebrated by statues which, at long last, were pulled down despite claims of “Southern heritage.” And today, in America, “well-meaning, good citizens,” protest against teaching the parts of our past that shame us. Their stated concern is that such reminders and revelations would make their children “uncomfortable.” But ignorance is uncomfortable. Bigotry is uncomfortable. Denial does not change reality. Today, our black families continue to undergo hardship. No, it isn’t of Holocaust levels, but still is terribly destructive and wholly unnecessary in our wealthy nation. GOP advocated denial is the worst approach because it teaches no lessons. It condemns us to repeat the sins of the past.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905. From the series Great Ideas of Western Man.

We neither can, nor should try, to erase the blemishes of our past. Nor should anyone blame our children for our sins or for the sins of those who came before us. Leveling such blame would, in itself, be bigotry. The purpose of teaching history is not to lay blame or to create guilt, but to help us know our own successes and foibles, and the circumstances that can move a nation to bigotry and hatred. We are not pure. No nation is. Pretending purity is blindness and naivete. Let us be honest with ourselves. To some degree, we all receive mistreatment at times, but in America people of color have been, and still are, disproportionately mistreated. We allow the teaching of the Holocaust, and even have museums dedicated to that education. Few object, because it was the Germans, and to a degree, the Poles, Austrians, French and others who committed those crimes. But the teaching of racism in America is an anathema to some Americans, because it is we, or more correctly, some of us, who are the perpetrators. And to hide that historical fact, we countenance angry denial. This brings us to something called “Critical Race Theory,” perhaps the most reviled yet least understood and least taught academic subject in education.

Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. One example: In the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas. Scholars who study critical race theory in education look at how policies and practices in K-12 education contribute to persistent racial inequalities in education, and advocate for ways to change them. Among the topics they’ve studied: racially segregated schools, the underfunding of majority-Black and Latino school districts, disproportionate disciplining of Black students, barriers to gifted programs and selective-admission high schools, and curricula that reinforce racist ideas.

Solving racial inequalities first requires admitting that they exist and then admitting that they should be solved. And that requires study. Sadly, there are those who deny any study is necessary, deny such inequalities exist to be solved, and claim any such equalities are the fault of the Black students — a “blame-the-victim” rationalization. The Catholic confessional begins, “Forgive me father for I have sinned.” The confession of sin is the first necessary step for absolution. Without realization and confession, the sin compounds. The Germans seem to have understood that the denial of sin is in itself a sin. “Forgive America, father, for we have sinned.” Those are the words of the truly moral, truly righteous. An evil man, like Donald Trump, would have you deny the obvious. He would have you deny the clear fact that people of color have received worse treatment in America than white Christians. That denial compounds the evil. For you who are religious, here is are reminders:

John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. Proverbs 28:13 Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. Psalm 32:5 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God James 4:17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Perhaps you are one of those rare souls who has not sinned and has not felt bigotry in your heart. But to deny, or even to countenance the sins of others against strangers is in itself a sin. Discomfort is not an excuse for denial. Children must be taught about the existence of sin so they can recognize it and learn to avoid it. Without this teaching, the children can be sucked into sin by evil persons. We are not born bigots. We learn to be bigots, unless we first learn about the evils of bigotry. The people who object to the teaching of racism in America often blame their children’s sensitivity. But this is a false excuse. The real reason is, they are ashamed of our past, and want to bury it. But the past has become the present, and it cannot be buried so long as it still lives. The only way to end the shame is to recognize it and to speak against it, else it will not only continue but multiply. Perhaps, the real problem lies not in the reluctance to admit that bigotry exists but rather in the fear of the cures. “Affirmative action” often has involved establishing racial quotas or preferences to “even out” representation in school admissions or job hiring. The problem here is that it invariably requires the less qualified to take precedence over the more qualified, and always will be seen as unfair. Affirmative action” also stigmatizes the very people it is supposed to help — the “You got in only because you are black” appearance, which further adds to the bigotry rather than reducing it. Once we recognize the bigotry problem itself, and once we determine to solve it, the solution lies not at the top but at its foundation: Money and poverty, i.e. the income/wealth/power Gap at the bottom of the financial scale. Lacking money, such minorities as Blacks and Latins suffer poorer primary schools, more crime, less family stability, poorer housing, poorer nutrition, and a desperate culture, where immediate needs take precedence over future plans. These all lead to poorer primary-school academic results which, in turn, lead to less-educated older students and less qualified job- and college applicants. The solution lies not in taking from the top to give to the bottom (which always will be fought by America’s most powerful), or in giving solely to the bottom (which will be viewed as unfair by America’s middle). Rather, the solution is to lift the lower levels far enough above subsistence so that the problems of poorer primary schools, more crime, less family stability, poorer housing, poorer nutrition, and desperation culture cease to impact even the least fortunate among us. This would be a “rising tide” approach that lifts all boats. Examples can be found in the “Ten Steps to Prosperity” (below). For example:

Eliminate the FICA tax
Offer free Medicare to All who want it.
Offer Social Security to All who want it.
Offer free College to All who want it.

Offering the same money to everyone, regardless of current income or wealth, will not affect the lifestyles of the rich, but can lift the poor to levels where school and job achievements are seen as being in reach. It will not evoke cries of “unfairness” and “discomfort” that currently plague the accurate teaching of America’s history.

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[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

……………………………………………………………………..

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.”

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

You can rely on the CRFB to get it wrong. But why?

[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?]

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) is a fountain of misinformation, or should we say, “disinformation”? Clearly, they are providing misinformation, i.e. wrong information, but the real question is, do they know it’s wrong, i.e disinformation? Because they do extensive data analysis, I believe they simply must know their information is wrong. So why do they promulgate so much nonsense? Before we answer that question, let’s see what they get wrong. Here are some excerpts from their website.

Gas Tax Holiday Would Take A Wrong Turn FEB 15, 2022 | TAXES The White House and some in Congress are reportedly considering suspending the 18.3 cent federal gas tax for the remainder of 2022. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget recently estimated that such a proposal would reduce gas tax revenues by $20 billion and, without the general revenue transfer proposed in recent legislation, would advance the Highway Trust Fund insolvency date from 2027 to 2026.

Assuming their numbers are correct, what they really are saying is: “The proposal would reduce the amount of money taken out of the private sector (also known as ‘the economy’) by $20 billion.” Adding dollars to the private sector is stimulative: taking dollars out of the private sector is recessive. In short, the reduced gas tax revenues would be a $20 Billion economic stimulus. The CRFB seems to hate anything that stimulates the economy, especially if it directly benefits the middle- and lower-income groups as a reduced gas tax would do. Further, the so-called Highway Trust Fund is not a real trust fund (see “The Phony Trust Fund Controversy”) and it cannot become insolvent unless Congress and the President want it to become insolvent. The U.S. government, the creator of the U.S. dollar, cannot run short of dollars. Thus, no agency of the U.S. government can become insolvent, unless that is what Congress wants.

(Former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”)

To prevent the insolvency of any agency, Congress merely passes a law that provides the agency with more dollars. Congress has the infinite ability to pass such laws.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: With inflation at a 40-year high, policymakers are appropriately focused on how to bring prices under control. But new tax cuts aren’t going to stop this inflation; after all, excessive tax cuts and spending are part of what caused high inflation.

Contrary to popular wisdom, no inflation in history ever has been caused by excessive tax cuts or spending. All inflations are caused by shortages of key goods and/or services.

**Interest rates (blue) and inflation (green) have trended down, while federal debt (red) has increased.**

For the past 10 years, federal deficit spending has increased massively, with minimal inflation. Now, suddenly, inflation has increased. Why? Clearly, the cause is not deficit spending, otherwise it would have happened sooner. Inflations are caused by shortages of key goods and services.. Today’s inflation is caused by the sudden confluence of several factors, all shortages: Labor, food, gasoline, computer chips, transportation, sand, among others. (Yes, I said “sand.” U.S. Shale Production Hindered By Sand Supply Crunch.) While massive federal spending has been with us for at least a decade, what has changed recently to cause the sudden change in inflation from low to high? The answer: COVID. The worldwide impact of the disease has caused the shortages that lead to inflation. The only thing that will cure the inflation is to cure the shortages. And that can be accomplished by more federal spending to obtain the needed goods and services:

More federal spending to encourage oil drilling and/or renewable energy. More federal spending to support farming More federal spending to support chip manufacture More federal spending to support transportation More federal spending to support hiring (i.e. the elimination of FICA taxes and the reduction of income taxes at the lower end)

Reduced federal deficit spending will lead only to recessions, as it always has.

While a gas tax holiday might provide some temporary relief, much of the benefit may flow through to oil producers or lead to higher prices in other sectors of the economy.

It makes no sense for low gas prices to cause price increases elsewhere. While low gas prices may cause an increase in demand for cars, every industry would see lower production costs, which will ease inflation. Benefitting oil producers is not something to be avoided. Financially encouraging them to pump more oil will ease the scarcity of oil.

By boosting demand in an already over-stimulated economy, the holiday would likely boost inflation in 2023 once it ends. The holiday will also undercut the Administration’s efforts to address climate change.

The CFRB would like you to believe the economy is “overstimulated.” No one knows what an “overstimulated” economy means, but it sure sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Presumably, it means companies are making more profits so that they will hire more people and pay more salaries to the lower- and middle income people, thereby narrowing the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest. Presumably, it means unemployment is low, so there are fewer impoverished children and their parents, again narrowing the Gap between the rich and the rest. “Gap Psychology” is the desire to widen the Gap below and to narrow the Gap above. All groups are subject to Gap Psychology, but the very rich are the most expert at effecting it. As for climate change, yes, encouraging more oil production will increase climate change, in the short term. But financially encouraging more use of renewables will have long-term climate benefits.

Meanwhile, the federal government would be out $20 billion this year alone – and much more if the holiday were extended.

The federal government has infinite money. Infinite minus $20 billion, still is infinite. The federal government always will have the infinite ability to write laws, and those laws have the unlimited ability to create dollars. The CRFB cries crocodile tears for the infinitely rich U.S. government, but no tears for you. They want you to pay the infinitely rich government more of your scarce dollars.

The Highway Trust Fund is just five years from insolvency, and the last thing we need is to cut its primary revenue source or paper over shortfalls with yet another general revenue transfer.

No, the last thing we need is liars telling us that the federal government is running short of its own sovereign currency, so you poor folks need to pony up more dollars, or receive fewer, benefits. “Insolvency” is the big, fake bogeyman with which the rich try to scare you. The Big Lie in economics is: “Federal taxes fund federal spending.” While state and local taxes do fund state and local spending, the federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, does not rely on, or even use, tax dollars. In fact, the U.S. Treasury destroys all tax dollars upon receipt. It creates new dollars, ad hoc, every time it pays a creditor. (How does the Treasuy destroy tax dollars? The dollars in your checking account are part of the M1 money supply. When the Treasury receives those dollars, they disappear. They no longer are part of any money supply measure. They effectively are destroyed.)

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.”

Thus, the federal government has infinite dollars; it can’t run short; and telling people to give the government more and to accept less is just an example of how the Big Lie works.

As it stands, the gas tax will only cover half of highway and transit spending by the time the trust fund runs out.

In fact, the gas tax covers none of transit spending. Those tax dollars are destroyed. All federal spending, including federal transit spending, is funded by ad hoc, federal money creation.

As inflation subsides, we should either raise that tax or find a new funding source to supplement or replace it.

We don’t need to find a new funding source. And we certainly don’t need to raise taxes. The federal government is the best funding source:

Former Fed Chairman 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.”

As we’ve stated, the CRFB, acts repelled by the fact that federal spending helps narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

A well-designed carbon tax could generate ample tax revenue while substantially reducing carbon emissions and tempering excessive demand.

A well designed carbon tax might be a good idea from an ecological standpoint. But it’s a silly idea if the purpose is to give private sector dollars to a government that has the infinite ability to create dollars.

The pain Americans are feeling at the gas pump – and with rising costs throughout the economy – should be taken seriously and addressed thoughtfully.

The gas price pain will be eased by raising gas taxes??? That’s the utter nonsense the CRFB wants you to believe.

While cutting the gas tax may have political appeal, it would move in exactly the wrong direction, worsening rather than improving our nation’s economic challenges.

The rising costs should be taken seriously, which is why the cost of gasoline should be reduced — by cutting the gas tax. Inflation takes dollars out of your pocket. The CRFB’s method of taking inflation seriously” is by taking even more dollars out of your pockets via tax increases. Why does the CRFB act this way? Because the rich, who run America, also run the CRFB, and support it with donations. The rich and the CRFB want to widen the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest. The rich always wish to be richer. The only way to be richer is to widen the Gap. There are two ways the rich can widen the Gap: Obtain more money for themselves and/or make sure you have less money by paying more taxes. Either one will make the rich richer, and the CRFB seems to be doing everything it can to reach that goal. In that vein, I just received this Email from CRFB:

Trust Fund Solutions Featuring Senators Angus King (I-ME) and Mitt Romney (R-UT)

Maya MacGuineas:Paid by the rich to tell you that the federal government’s trust funds soon will be insolvent.
The major government trust funds for Social Security, Medicare, and Highway spending face insolvency in the next decade-and-a-half. Policymakers need to act sooner rather than later to prevent abrupt across-the-board benefit cuts, assure a more sustainable debt path, promote faster economic growth, and achieve a number of important policy goals.

How raising taxes will help “promote faster economic growth” is a mystery the CRFB never really explains.

Trust Fund Solutions will feature opening remarks from Senator Angus King (I-ME) and a discussion between Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget president Maya MacGuineas. The event will also feature a panel of experts, one focused on each trust fund. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget will also debut its new Trust Fund Solutions website and educational tools.

You can bet that the “solutions” for the mythical “Trust Funds” will involve tax increases (for which the rich will given loopholes) plus benefit decreases, both of which will widen the Gap between the rich and the rest. Widening the Gap is what the rich pay the CRFB to do. SUMMARY 1. The Big Lie in economics is that the U.S. federal government can run short of its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar. Not only does the govarnment itself have access to infinite dollars, but no agency of the government can run short of dollars unless Congress and the President want that. 2. The government neither needs nor uses tax dollars, which are destroyed by the Treasury upon receipt. 3. Federal deficit spending never causes inflations (scarcities are what cause inflations). Federal deficit spending can cure inflations by curing scarcities. Reductions in federal deficit spending lead to recessions or depressions. 4. The rich grow richer by widening the Gap between the rich and the rest. Gap widening has two paths: Gaining more for the rich and/or forcing the rest to accept less. 5. The CRFB is paid to aid the rich by convincing the populace to accept Gap widening. 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.

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.”

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Are the Republicans really that stupid, or is it something more sinister?

Canadian truckers have decided not just to inconvenience everyone, but to cost themselves money, and to risk the lives of their neighbors, and to risk their own lives, and to cost Canada billions, if not trillions — all to demonstrate, with abject stupidity, that they either don’t accept the word of doctors or don’t like obeying laws.

My advice to the truckers is: If you get COVID, don’t see a doctor. See a trucker. They must know more than the doctors.

The problem with stupid people is they are too stupid to understand that they are stupid. No truth penetrates. They are incapable of differentiating fact from conspiracy, so they get their information from such grotesque lie disseminators as QAnon, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Fox News, and proven psychopath, Donald Trump.

The stupids refuse not only to protect themselves with a vaccination, but they refuse to protect others, not because they are mean-spirited, but because they, very simply, are stupid.

The Capitol Riot Now Looks Like a Rehearsal for the End of Democracy - Variety — **“Legitimate Political Discourse”**

They want to arrest Dr. Fauci for telling them to protect themselves with vaccines and masks (How dare he!)

When you see videos of the attempted coup, which continues even today, remember that the stupids say it was “Legitimate political discourse.”

And, notice the American flags among the Trump flags. Those Stupid Party fools actually believe waving a flag makes them patriots.

Sorry, but being a flag-waver (or hugger) doesn’t make you a patriot any more than holding up a bible in a photo op makes you religious.

Thank you, God': Trump revels in reign as absolute king of CPAC | Donald Trump | The Guardian — **Draft dodger claims to love America but says killed U.S. soldiers were “suckers.”**

**Seldom been in a church. First time he’s touched a bible.**

Barely a day passes without some prominent Republican doing or saying something stupid. Here is a message a GOP Presidential hopeful has promulgated for more than eight months.

DeSantis sells anti-Fauci t-shirts as Florida Covid death toll hits 38,000

July 14, 2021: Florida governor Ron DeSantis has released a new range of merchandise with slogans targeting Anthony Fauci, as well as requirements for face masks.

Two drink koozies and a t-shirt featuring the words “Don’t Fauci My Florida” and “How the hell am I going to be able to drink a beer with a mask on?” are among the items on sale.

This is what passes for clever humor in stupidland.

“You don’t want to miss out on this,” the DeSantis campaign wrote on Twitter on Monday.

“Shop the store and support your favourite freedom-loving Governor NOW”.

Freedom to die, apparently, as Florida has seen more than 66 thousand people die of COVID and an above-average rate per thousand. Compare that with the outrage about the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed about 3 thousand people.

If you were the governor of a state that had lost 66 thousand of its citizens, wouldn’t you do everything possible to protect their lives? Not stupid DeSantis.

DeSantis, like Trump, directs his lies to the least intelligent among us, the real stupids who believe everything nonsensical, so long as it contains a modicum of liberal bashing.

He’s not only outlawed mask mandates and discouraged vaccines, but he hired a stupid, mask and vax denier, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who sets a perfect example for Floridians by refusing even to say whether he himself has been vaccinated.

This dummy even refused to wear a mask in Sen. Tina Polsky’s office, though she is trying to recover from breast cancer, and must avoid infection. Why won’t he wear a mask when she asked him to? He just didn’t want to, and didn’t care that he was risking her life.

Would you act that way in a sick person’s office?

And he’s a doctor!!!

Fauci has been one of the sane voices in this entire calamity. So, of course, the Republicans want to fire him, or arrest him, or do something more awful to him, just because he’s tried to speak truth to them.

(There’s nothing a Republican hates more than truth. See: What you need to know about Trump’s weekend of election lies and January 6 whitewashing)

And then there’s this bit of stupidity from the leader of the stupids and America’s #1 traitor and rabble-rouser

Fascism: Trump vows pardons for Jan. 6 seditionists, calls for nationwide protests if indicted

Trump: “If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere, because our country and our elections are corrupt. They’re corrupt.”

Who Are The North Texans Charged In Capitol Riots? — **It’s the prosecutors who are “radical, vicious, and racist,” not these “good people.”**

Trump is not angry at the people who committed mayhem in attacking Congress and threatened its members. He’s angry at the Committee that is trying to uncover the facts. They are the ones who are “radical, vicious, and racist.” Stupid.

And when even butt-kissing Lindsey Graham said, the rioters should “not be forgiven,” Trump (who was hiding safely in Mar-a-Lago during the attempted coup) called Graham a “RINO.” (That’s Trump’s favorite word for anyone who disagrees with him.)

Sorry, Lindsey, but you forgot the 6 rules of Trump. Rule #2: Eventually, Trump will stab you in the back.

Of course, Trump doesn’t consider Congress to be as important as a statue. He wrote:

“I have authorized the Federal Government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such Federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison, per the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent.” Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020

Trump’s followers stupidly agree that a statue of a Confederate general (a traitor on a horse) is far more important to democracy and America than are Congress and the Presidential election.

Then there’s the GOP’s Sen .Ron Johnson who continues to set records for stupidity by disseminating false information about virtually everything: He said he trusted the MAGA domestic terrorists over Black Lives Matter protestors, and while spreading Russian disinformation, is lately is being laughed at for his false claim about how Greenland got its name.

He may be America’s most stupid Senator, but he’s in a close match with Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas., who claims with zero evidence or expertise that COVID is a Chinese communist plot.

And let’s not forget Olympic champion of stupid, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.), who claimed the violent mob of Donald Trump supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, just wanted to talk to their representatives. (She also said Hitler’s secret police were “the gazpacho.”)

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention former Democrat, now Republican Sen. John Kennedy, who after becoming a Republican, has delivered tons of truly stupid bull manure including this doozy: After retracting his false claims about Hunter Biden in Ukraine, he went on CNN, and claimed Ukraine was the real country meddling in the 2016 election.

And then there is who might be not only the most stupid man in Congress, but the most stupid man who ever has been in Congress, Republican Sen. Rand Paul. Here is just one example of his dopiness:

“With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have to realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician.

“That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery.

“It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.

“I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you?

“That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.”

That is what a prominent Republican, a man Republican voters support, says: Your having healthcare will enslave him.

This post could be 100 times its current length, and still, it wouldn’t begin to cover the rampant stupidity in America, today. We like to view with derision, the stupidity exhibited by the populace in some banana-republics, or even in Europe or Asia.

We always have puffed up our chests and claimed we are the “most” and the “greatest,” and everyone should follow our example.

Well, guess what folks. We now have joined the most stupid with the greatest stupidity, and it seems we are setting a perfect example for the world.

Or . . . are the Republican pols engaged in something even worse than stupidity?

The ostensible purpose of a government is to improve and protect the lives of the populace. the

But that is not the goal of today’s Republican party. This is not the party that gave you Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, the Civil Rights Acts, the Voting Rights Acts, food stamps, unemployment insurance.

The Republican party is bereft of ideas that benefit the populace. Instead, the Republicans focus on two goals:

Benefitting the rich at the expense of the middle and the poor
Winning elections by taking advantage of America’s peculiar minority-rule laws.

Of the last six Presidential elections, the Republicans have won the popular vote in only one (George Bush).

In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, but won the election. He did even worse in 2020, when he lost by 7 million votes, but whines that he really won and falsely claims the election was “rigged.”

During Trump’s four-year term, his major accomplishments were:

Failure of his dozens of attempts to repeal Obamacare (which continues to grow in popularity).
Overturning many Obama-era regulations that protected the populace (Example: Ended an Obama regulation that prevented coal-mining companies from dumping debris and waste into nearby streams. Rolled back financial disclosure requirements for energy firms. Gave states the ability to drug test recipients of unemployment benefits, repealed an Obama rule prohibiting the mentally disabled from purchasing firearms.
Major tax cuts for the rich

At this point, you may believe that I have described the stupidity of the Republican Party. If so, you would be wrong, for I believe the GOP has been quite clever, though in a evil way.

For historical reasons, having to do with compromises necessary to get the original states’ agreement to join the United States, America does not use majority-rule election systems.

Cities, counties, states, and even the federal government, including the President, are elected by complicated methods that award extra power to numerical minorities of voters.

Gerrymandering, Senate rules, and the electoral college system have resulted, for instance, in the Supreme Court being 2/3 right-wing, despite the nation being slightly left-wing.

An even more telling example is abortion, where a slight majority of Americans favor it, but the Supreme Court, most of whose members claim to be conservative (i.e. conserve existing law), have decided to be activist as well as cruel, so seem intent on changing the laws allowing abortion.

A clue to Republican strategy is seen in this chart:

Religious and Moral Beliefs Linked with Abortion Views — **FROM PEW RESEARCH CENTER**

The educated favor abortion. The uneducated and the religious, people who are less likely to deal with facts and more likely to obey emotions, oppose.

Major religions, despite their claims of morality and virtue, are nothing more than giant cults, where the most important factor is not fact but belief.

The rantings and fables of QAnon and Fox News are neither more nor less based on fact than are the various saints, miracles and gods of the major religions. The highly pious are tend to be accustomed to acceptance above analysis.

Thus, when Trump claims, despite all evidence, that he actually “won” and election he lost by 7 million votes, his religious followers believe with all their hearts and souls, and no amount of factual information will dissuade them.

After all, no scientific evidence will convince a believer that the virgin birth is impossible.

Trump, despite (or because of) being irreligious himself, cleverly understands this.

The Republicans, rather than developing ideas about benefits for the masses as their vote motivators, have focused on emotional motivators: Hatred and fear of “others.”

This is why conspiracy theories, which are fact-deficient, and based on intuition and emotion, find such traction among the religious right-wing, and it is why lies and craziness are not deal-breakers for those Republican voters.

One of the most puzzling social science findings in the past half century is the Easterlin paradox:

Economic growth within a country does not always translate into an increase in happiness. We provide evidence that this paradox can be partly explained by income inequality.

In two different data sets covering 34 countries, economic growth was not associated with increases in happiness when it was accompanied by growing income inequality.

Earlier instances of the Easterlin paradox (i.e., economic growth not being associated with increasing happiness) can thus be explained by the frequent concurrence of economic growth and growing income inequality.

These findings suggest that a more even distribution of growth in national wealth may be a precondition for raising nationwide happiness.

Being more concerned with power and with the happiness of the rich, rather than the power and happiness of the middle or poor, the Republicans focus on income inequality, aka Gap Psychology (the human desire to widen the Gap below you and to narrow the Gap above you).

Rather than trying to help the middle and lower-income/wealth/power groups, as the Democrats do, the Republicans execute the opposite: They cater to the rich with tax breaks and, importantly, they create anti-poor resentment in the middle, lower-middle, and even the lower-income groups by fomenting hatred of those receiving anti-poverty aid.

The Republicans effectively blame the Democrats for narrowing the Gap below the middle classes, and for widening the Gap above the middle classes. Thus, they are able to generate hatred of Democrats for supporting immigrants and lower-income ethnic groups.

The rich get money and everyone else gets outrage, a potent combination.

SUMMARY The cult-like, Republican base, being less affluent, less educated, and more religious, is accustomed to accepting myths and lies. To them, faith and belief are more influential than facts.

To them, Trump’s repetition of the lie that the election was stolen, needs no evidence. The Trumpers have faith.

Trump Republican pols are able to lie with impunity because they encounter very little blowback. Conspiracy theories abound in the GOP-world, and powerful media like FOX and Brietbart, cynically foster such belief.

Further, the Republican base revels in the notion that their “saints” help them rebel against control, which is why Canadian truckers, against their own best interests, do what they can to endanger everyone around them.

The rich segment of the Republican voters don’t care about the lies and myths so long as the tax breaks keep coming.

In the eyes of logical thinkers, the Republican myths are ridiculous (“How can the right-wing voters believe such nonsense?”), but right-wing, conspiracy theories are no more ridiculous than typical religious myths.

The Trump-Republicans (Trumplicans) cynically have learned that:

Over the short time of elections, fear and hate are far stronger than compassion, and myths are far stronger than facts.
Winning elections is more important than benefitting the people.
The rich always will run America, and they will pay handsomely for the privilege.

So the GOP focuses efforts toward those most responsive to myths, toward gerrymandered voting rules, and toward the rich.

How “stupid” is that?

In answer to the title question, “Are the Republicans really that stupid, or is it something more sinister?” it’s not the Republicans who are stupid. It’s the people who vote for Republicans; they are the stupids.

They give the charlatans their precious votes, and in return receive nothing, while the Gap above them widens every day.

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.

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.”

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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