Sometimes in life, things get so ridiculous, you simply have to laugh.
They believed him when he said he wouldn’t cut Medicare and Social Security. They believed him when he said global warming was a Chinese hoax, and that he never groped those women. They believed he really had a heel spur that kept him out of the army and that he won the popular vote.
They believed he couldn’t show his taxes because he was “under audit.” They believed him when he claimed, “Between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused me to lose the popular vote.” They believed him when he said, “There’s very little benefit (in the tax plan) for people of wealth.”
They believed him when he said, “Black homeownership just hit the highest level it has ever been in the history of our country.” They believed him when he said, “The tax bill “is going to cost me a fortune, this thing — believe me. Believe me, this is not good for me.” They believed Trump University was an honest school.
And now they believe him when he says he is a “very stable genius.” Who the heck are the dupes who believe whatever Trump tells them?
Want to see just a small list of the things these folks are laughing at? Go to:
•All we have are partial solutions; the best we can do is try.
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money no matter how much it taxes its citizens.
•No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth.
•Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
•A growing economy requires a growing supply of money (GDP = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
•Deficit spending grows the supply of money
•The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.
•Progressives think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
If you ever have wondered what we mean by the “Big Lie,” you need wonder no more. Here it is, as demonstrated by Jacob L. (Jack) Lew, former U.S. Treasury Secretary.
Remember, as you read this, we’re not talking about ignorance. We’re talking about outright lying. A Treasury Secretary knows how the U.S. financial system operates. Lew surely does. But he repeatedly misstates the facts, i.e. lies.
Jack Lew said the Trump administration’s decision to add a significant amount of debt through last year’s tax legislation is leaving the country broke.
Immediately we see lie #1: The United States cannot be “broke,” if being “broke” means being unable to pay its bills.
The United States, unlike you, and me, and unlike the cities, counties, and states — the United States uniquely is Monetarily Sovereign. It has the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.
The U.S. government cannot run short of dollars. Period.
Yes, I know. Back in 2009, GOP Speaker of the House John Boehner lied:
“We’re broke. America’s broke. All year long, our friends on the other side of the aisle have been on a massive spending spree that our nation can’t afford.
“Our Democrat friends want to raise the debt limit next week by $1.8 trillion. Instead, let’s stop the madness and vote no.”
That was eight years ago, when the federal debt was under $8 Trillion.
Today, the federal debt has almost doubled, to $15 Trillion, and guess what: We still aren’t “broke.” We continue to pay all our bills, and oh yes, the GOP has voted to add $1.5 trillion more to the federal debt — and we won’t be “broke” then, either.
It was a lie, a Big Lie when Boehner said it, and it’s a Big Lie today when Lew says it.
Both articles detailed the ongoing references, beginning in 1940 (!), to the federal debt as a “ticking time bomb.” Well, that phony 78-year-old “time bomb” still is ticking:
“It’s a ticking time bomb in terms of the debt,”Lew said in a Bloomberg Radio interview withTom Keene and Jonathan Ferro. “You cannot run a fiscal policy by spending trillions of dollars you don’t have at a time that the economy is doing well.”
For 78 years, the debt-nuts have warned us about imminent disaster. Seventy-eight years of being wrong, wrong, wrong. How many more years of lies will be required for the public to catch on?
Not only is the “time bomb” analogy a lie, but so is the “dollars you don’t have” phrase a lie. I challenge Mr. Lew to tell us how many dollars the U.S. federal government “has.”
The answer would be either none or infinite, depending on how one wishes to count, for the government has the unlimited ability to create dollars, ad hoc, every time it pays a bill.
(If you owned a dollar-printing press, how much money would you have?)
Having chosen to make tax policy without including Democrats in any of the conversation, now the administration probably can’t rally Republicans in Congress to do the basic business of government, such as making sure the country doesn’t default on debt and children don’t get thrown off health insurance, he said.
IF (big “if”) the Republicans don’t want the U.S. to default on its debt, all they need do is simply to pay the bills. The government does this every day, by sending instructions to each creditor’s bank, instructing the bank to increase the numbers in the creditor’s checking account.
So long as the federal government doesn’t run short of instructions, the country won’t default on its debt.
And as for throwing children off health insurance, all the GOP Congress needs to do is to vote to pay for health care. Simple and obvious, but the GOP prefers to claim that our Monetarily Sovereign nation is “broke.”
“The next shoe to drop is going to be an attack on the most vulnerable in our society,” Lew said. “How are we going to pay for the deficit caused by the tax cut?
We are going to see proposals to cut health insurance for poor people, to take basic food support away from poor people, to attack Medicare and Social Security.
One could not have made up a more cynical strategy.”
Mr. Lew, who are you trying to kid? “Cutting health insurance for poor people, and taking basic food support away from poor people” is exactly what the GOP wants to do.
Widen the Gap. That, in three short words, is the entire GOP platform. It is what their wealthy backers want.
So Lew, a Democrat, carries water for the Republicans, proving again that political liars come in all stripes.
“What we’ve seen is a tax cut that spends money we don’t have to have very concentrated benefits for global corporations and the top 1 percent, and it’s leaving us broke,” according to Lew.
The most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity: 1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA ) Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons: *FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and *The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare. 2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All ) This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:
Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap. 8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.
The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
As readers of this blog know, “Gap Psychology“ describes the human desire to distance oneself (widen the Gap) from those who are poorer, and to come closer to those who are richer.
Without the Gap, no one would be rich; we all would be the same. And the wider the Gap, the richer the rich are. Thus the prime interest of the rich is not just to make more money, but more importantly, to widen the Gaps below them.
Gap Psychology is manifested in many ways, from segregated neighborhoods, to private schools, to membership clubs, designer clothes, expensive cars, jewelry, mansions, etc.
Each is designed to help the richer separate themselves, physically and emotionally, from those who are poorer. The reverse also is true: For instance, wearing expensive jewelry allows the wearer to “come closer” to those who are richer. That is the other phase of Gap Psychology.
Gap Psychology is maintained by certain, basic beliefs, including the false narrative that poorer people are fundamentally less moral, less intelligent and lazier than those who are richer.
More crime, especially violent crime, occurs in poor neighborhoods. This fact leads to two partial solutions for violent crime (“Partial,” because there are no total solutions for social problems):
Attack violent crime directly with more police, tougher treatment by police, stricter laws, and harsher penalties, or
Reduce the number and population of poor neighborhoods.
#1 is the partial solution of choice for the right wing. President Trump has advocated this approach.
#2 is the partial solution of choice for the left wing.
Which approach is more humane, more moral and more likely to reduce violent crime?
According to the World Bank, a simple measure of inequality predicts about half of the variance in murder rates between American states and between countries around the world.
When inequality is high and strips large numbers of men of the usual markers of status – like a good job and the ability to support a family – matters of respect and disrespect loom disproportionately.
Inequality predicts homicide rates “better than any other variable”, says Martin Daly, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at McMaster University in Ontario.
This includes factors like rates of gun ownership (which also rise when inequality does) and cultural traits like placing more emphasis on “honor” (this, too, turns out to be linked with inequality). “
About 60 [academic] papers show that a very common result of greater inequality is more violence, usually measured by homicide rates,” says Richard Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level and co-founder of the Equality Trust.
The introduction to the “Ten Steps to Prosperity” (below) reads:
“The most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.
“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.”
Just over half of murders are set off, not by a robbery, a love triangle, drugs, domestic violence or money, but simply the sense that someone had been dissed.
Harold Pollack, co-director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, agrees. “If you foreclose [mainstream] opportunities for respect, status and personal advancement, people will find other ways to pursue those things.”
Obviously, potential murderers don’t check the local Gini Index – the most commonly used measure of inequality that looks at how wealth is distributed – before deciding whether to get a gun.
But they are keenly attuned to their own level of status in society and whether it allows them to get what they need to live a decent life. If they can’t, while others visibly bask in luxury that seems both impossible to attain and unfairly won, those far from the top often become desperate.
To paraphrase Bill Clinton, when he pointed out the most important issue in America, “It’s the Gap, stupid.”
Yes, widening the Gap by enriching the rich and impoverishing the poor also provides the most common motivation for violent crime.
What’s less known is that in most countries, most of the victims are male. Since inequality is common worldwide, killings related to status predominate – and men kill those whom they see as rivals.
All types of homicide are much less common in the egalitarian Scandinavian countries than in the US. But disputes over male status are so much lower in such countries that while in the US, 77% of victims are male, only 50% are in the Nordic nations.
“What’s fallen out is all this male macho stuff,” Daly says. Although inequality can also affect rates of crimes like robbery or burglary, its effect is most clearly seen in the way it murderously magnifies beefs.
One irony is that violent crime in the poor areas begets the belief that the poor do not “deserve” government assistance — that helping the “takers” only encourages sloth.
This belief, together with Gap Psychology provides the rich with a justification for cutting social benefits like Social Security, Medicare, poverty aids, education aids, etc.
The recent, stunning rise in inequality in America started in 1979, with the top 1% capturing 54% of all the increase in income between that year and 2007. Between 2009 and 2013, the 1% took 85% of income growth and the situation has only worsened since.
Daly says that no one knows what time lag to expect between a rise in inequality and a rise in murder – but if it does take a few decades, this could be the start of a troubling trend, not a blip.
The greater irony is that Donald Trump took advantage of the widening Gap, by promising the poor he would “drain the swamp,” “bring back jobs,” and get “fairer treatment” for America by “making America great, again,” none of which he even has tried to do.
In fact, the ill-fated GOP health care bills were aggressive Gap-widening efforts, and the recently passed, GOP tax bill is the ultimate Gap-widening program.
Stanford historian Walter Scheidel, wrote that historically, the only way high inequality has been flattened has been through catastrophe: disease, famine, world war, societal collapse or communist revolution.
This is where we now are being led, where the poor are blamed for being poor and for experiencing the inevitable violence that results from poverty vs. plenty.
In summary, if you wish to reduce violent crime, the best way is to help lift the poor and middle, not just to jail them.
The most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity: 1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA ) Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons: *FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and *The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare. 2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All ) This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:
Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap. 8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.
The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
If this year’s news has you confused about whether or not the federal “debt” was too high, is too high, or soon will be too high, you are not alone. The politicians want you to be confused.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of a conservative Republican faction in the U.S. Congress, who voted this month for a huge expansion of the national debt to pay for tax cuts, called himself a “fiscal conservative” on Sunday and urged budget restraint in 2018.
In reality, the GOP, “Party of the Rich,” doesn’t have a fundamental objection to a “high” debt.
And in that, they are correct. The “high” federal debt merely is the total of deposits in Treasury security accounts. These deposits can come from foreign investors, domestic investors, or from the Federal Reserve.
If no one wished to invest in federal T-securities, the Federal Reserve could buy them all, or not buy any. The federal government does not need anyone to deposit in T-security accounts.
The deposits in T-securities, the so-called “debt,” have no adverse effect on the U.S. economy.
To some degree, these deposits actually have a positive effect, because they force the federal government to pump additional interest dollars into the economy, and those dollars are economically stimulative.
In keeping with a sharp pivot under way among Republicans, U.S. Representative Mark Meadows, speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” drew a hard line on federal spending, which lawmakers are bracing to do battle over in January.
Meadows was among Republicans who voted in late December for their party’s debt-financed tax overhaul, which is expected to balloon the federal budget deficit and add about $1.5 trillion over 10 years to the $20 trillion national debt.
For years, the GOP has decried the federal “debt” (deposits) as being “unsustainable,” until last year they unanimously voted for a budget that will add $1.5 trillion to the debt.
Suddenly debt became O.K., and now that the bill has passed, just as suddenly the GOP, once again, will find the “debt” a terrible threat
President Donald Trump and his Republicans want a big budget increase in military spending, while Democrats also want proportional increases for non-defense “discretionary” spending on programs that support education, scientific research, infrastructure, public health and environmental protection.
“The (Trump) administration has already been willing to say: ‘We’re going to increase non-defense discretionary spending … by about 7 percent,'” Meadows, chairman of the small but influential House Freedom Caucus, said on the program.
Both parties know the debt is no threat to the economy or to taxpayers, but both want to appear fiscally prudent by claiming to be debt haters.
“Eventually you run out of other people’s money,” Meadow said.
The politicians hide the truth that federal taxes (unlike state and local taxes) pay for nothing.
The moment the Treasury receives your tax dollars, those dollars disappear from any money supply measure.
They no longer are part of such money measures as M1, M2, M3, L, etc. Thus, those federal tax dollars simply are destroyed.
There are two ways dollars are created and two ways dollars are destroyed:
Dollars Created:
1. All lending
2. Federal deficit spending
Dollars Destroyed
1. Loans repaid
2. Federal taxation
Even if all federal taxes, and all federal borrowing, were reduced to $0, the federal government could continue spending forever. (This isn’t true of state and local governments, which do use tax income to pay their bills.)
Federal finances are different from state/local government finances. It is the difference between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty.
Meadows was among Republicans who voted in late December for their party’s debt-financed tax overhaul, which is expected to balloon the federal budget deficit and add about $1.5 trillion over 10 years to the $20 trillion national debt.
“It’s interesting to hear Mark talk about fiscal responsibility,” Democratic U.S. Representative Joseph Crowley said on CBS.
Crowley said the Republican tax bill would require the United States to borrow $1.5 trillion, to be paid off by future generations, to finance tax cuts for corporations and the rich.
“This is one of the least … fiscally responsible bills we’ve ever seen passed in the history of the House of Representatives. I think we’re going to be paying for this for many, many years to come,” Crowley said.
Crowley, too, promulgates the Big Lie. The Big Truth is:
The federal government never is forced to borrow, and indeed, does not borrow. It has the unlimited ability to create dollars, which it does, ad hoc, every time it pays a creditor.
Future generations will not “pay for” federal “borrowing” (i.e. deposits in T-security accounts). Those accounts will be paid off by transferring the dollars already in the accounts back to the checking accounts of the T-security holders.
Republicans insist the tax package, the biggest U.S. tax overhaul in more than 30 years, will boost the economy and job growth.
If the tax package does cause a $1 trillion increase in federal deficit spending, it will stimulate the economy by adding dollars to the economy.
The problem is that though the total economy will grow, the way the tax bill is structured,it will boost the rich at the expense of the rest. It will widen the Gap.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, who also supported the tax bill, recently went further than Meadows, making clear in a radio interview that welfare or “entitlement reform,” as the party often calls it, would be a top Republican priority in 2018.
In Republican parlance, “entitlement” programs mean food stamps, housing assistance, Medicare and Medicaid health insurance for the elderly, poor and disabled, as well as other programs created by Washington to assist the needy.
That is the GOP goal: To help their wealthy backers by widening the Gap between the rich and the rest.
The “Gap” is what makes the rich rich. Without the Gap, no one would be rich. (We all would be the same.) And the wider the Gap, the richer they are. So cutting benefits to the middle- and lower-income groups, make the rich richer.
Democrats seized on Ryan’s early December remarks, saying they showed Republicans would try to pay for their tax overhaul by seeking spending cuts for social programs.
The author means the Republicans would try to “pay for” increased deficits by cutting social programs. But that is not correct. Nothing pays for increased deficits. The government pays for its financial obligations by creating new dollars, not by taxes or spending cuts.
To pay a creditor, the federal government sends instructions (not dollars) to the creditor’s bank, instructing the bank to increase the numbers in the creditor’s checking account. When the bank does as instructed, brand new dollars are created.
In summary:
Both parties know the federal “debt,” (deposits) are not “unsustainable” or paid for by future generations.
Both parties also know federal deficit spending stimulates economic growth by adding dollars to the economy.
And both parties know that deficit reduction leads to recessions, while recessions are cured by increased deficit spending.
The difference between the parties is the GOP’s desire to make the rich richer, at the expense of the poor, while the Democrats wish to improve the lives of the poor at the expense of the rich.
Both tell the Big Lie (that federal taxes fund federal spending) to further their own political agenda.
Declines in deficit growth cause recessions (vertical gray bars), while increases in deficit growth cure recessions.
The most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity: 1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA ) Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons: *FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and *The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare. 2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All ) This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:
Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap. 8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.
The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
The politicians hide the truth that federal taxes (unlike state and local taxes) pay for nothing.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 