Historical bullshit about federal “debt.” From Sept. 26, 1940 to August 12, 2025

This is an update of the many, many previous posts showing the seemingly never-ending warnings about “federal debt” (that isn’t federal and isn’t debt).

The purpose has been to demonstrate how, year after year, so-called experts claim the U.S. is about to enter catastrophe because federal debt is “too high,” while the experts are proven wrong year after year. The economy grows and grows and is healthier than ever.

I’ve been doing this for over 20 years; the experts have been wrong for over 85 years, and they never seem to learn. While I find it frustrating, I’ve tried to remain civil and merely recite the facts. But now, as I pass my 90th year, and the road ahead is short, I’ve grown impatient with civility, and I’ve decided to call it like it is: BULLSHIT.

Last year, what set me off is a BULLSHIT tweet (or whatever “X” calls them now), from the richest man in the world, who, despite his great wealth, seems to know diddly-squat about federal finance:

No Elon, the U.S. federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, cannot go bankrupt. Even if tax collections fell to $0, and spending tripled, the federal government could continue to pay all its bills, forever.

The Big Lie in economics is: “Federal taxes fund federal spending.” Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

The truth is that federal taxes fund nothing. They are destroyed upon receipt by the Treasury.

The purpose of federal taxes is to:

Control the economy by taxing what the government wishes to discourage and by giving tax breaks to those the government wishes to reward (mainly the wealthy).
Assure demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring taxes to be paid in dollars.

That’s it. Taxes do not fund federal spending. Period.

The U.S. federal government is not like state/local governments, not like euro governments, not like businesses, and not like you and me.

It is uniquely Monetarily Sovereign. It cannot, unwillingly, run short of its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar. As real experts have said:

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody. The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print the money to do that.“

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. 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 Monetarily Sovereign ECB, January 9, 2014. Question: Can the ECB ever run out of money? Mario Draghi: Technically, no. We cannot run out of money.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell stated, “As a central bank, we have the ability to create money digitally.”

Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize–winning economist): “The U.S. government is not like a household. It literally prints money, and it can’t run out.” — Numerous op-eds/blog posts

Hyman Minsky (Economist, key influence on MMT)
“The government can always finance its spending by creating money.”

Eric Tymoigne (Economist) “A sovereign government does not need to collect taxes or issue bonds to finance spending. It finances directly through money creation.”

Because the U.S. federal government has the infinite ability to create its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar, it never borrows dollars.

Contrary to popular wisdom, T-bills, T-notes, and T-bonds do not represent borrowing. They are deposits, the purpose of which is to provide a safe place to store unused dollars and to help the Fed control interest rates.

The government never touches those dollars, which remain the property of the depositors. Not only can our Monetarily Sovereign government not run short of dollars, but federal deficits are necessary to grow the economy, as evidenced by the formula: Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports.

The formula shows that economic growth requires federal deficit spending growth.

**The record highs of federal debt (red) match the record highs of Gross Domestic Product (blue).**

The next graph shows that reduced deficit growth (red) is associated with recessions (vertical gray bars), and increased deficit growth cures recessions.

When we don’t have sufficient federal deficits, we have depressions and recessions:

U.S. depressions tend to come on the heels of federal surpluses.

1. 1. 1. 1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807.
    2. 1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
    3. 1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
    4. 1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
    5. 1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
    6. 1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
    7. 1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.
    8. 1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.

Periodically, we publish yet another shrieking claim that the U.S. federal debt is “unsustainable” and a “ticking time bomb.”

This lie has been told to you every year (really, almost every day) since 1940, and that bomb has never exploded, nor will it.

Rather than repeat the entire list of the thousands of lies to which you have been subject, I will list samples here as a reference and add periodically, at the end, new “federal debt is a ticking time bomb“ BULLSHIT claims as I encounter them.

Read these and see that even respected economists replace facts with BULLSHIT:

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September 26, 1940, New York Times: The federal budget was a “ticking time-bomb which can eventually destroy the American system,” said Robert M. Hanes, president of the American Bankers Association. BULLSHIT

(Yes, the record of bad predictions goes all the way back to 1940. It probably goes back longer, but I don’t have the examples.)

By 1983: “The debt probably will explode in the third quarter of 1984,” said Fred Napolitano, former National Association of Home Builders president.BULLSHIT

In 1984: AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland said. “It’s a time bomb ticking away.”BULLSHIT

In 1985: “The federal deficit is a ticking time bomb, and it’s about to blow up,” U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. (Remember him?)BULLSHIT

Later in 1985: Los Angeles Times: “We labeled the deficit a ‘ticking time bomb‘ that threatens to permanently undermine the strength and vitality of the American economy.”BULLSHIT

In 1987: Richmond Times-Dispatch – Richmond, VA: “100TH CONGRESS FACING U.S. DEFICIT’ TIME BOMB‘”BULLSHIT

Later in 1987: The Dallas Morning News: “A fiscal time bomb is slowly ticking that, if not defused, could explode into a financial crisis within the next few years for the federal government.”BULLSHIT

In 1989: FORTUNE Magazine: “A TIME BOMB FOR U.S. TAXPAYERS“BULLSHIT

In 1992: The Pantagraph – Bloomington, Illinois: “I have seen where politicians in Washington have expressed little or no concern about this ticking time bomb they have helped to create, that being the enormous federal budget deficit, approaching $4 trillion.“BULLSHIT

Later in 1992, Ross Perot said, “Our great nation is sitting right on top of a ticking time bomb. We have a national debt of $4 trillion.”BULLSHIT

In 1995: Kansas City Star: “Concerned citizens. . . regard the national debt as a ticking time bomb poised to explode with devastating consequences at some future date.”BULLSHIT

In 2003: Porter Stansberry, for the Daily Reckoning: “Generation debt is a ticking time bomb . . . with about ten years left on the clock.”BULLSHIT

In 2004: Bradenton Herald: “A NATION AT RISK: TWIN DEFICIT A TICKING TIME BOMB” BULLSHIT

In 2005: Providence Journal: “Some lawmakers see the Medicare drug benefit for what it is: a ticking time bomb.” BULLSHIT

In 2006: NewsMax.com, “We have to worry about the deficit . . . when we combine it with the trade deficit, we have a real ticking time bomb in our economy,” said Mrs. Clinton. BULLSHIT

In 2007: USA Today: “Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen.” BULLSHIT

In 2010: Heritage Foundation: “Why the National Debt is a Ticking Time Bomb. Interest rates on government bonds are virtually guaranteed to jump over the next few years. BULLSHIT

In 2010: Reason Alert: “. . . the time bomb that’s ticking under the federal budget like a Guy Fawkes’ powder keg.” BULLSHIT

In 2011: Washington Post, Lori Montgomery:”. . . defuse the biggest budgetary time bombs that are set to explode.” BULLSHIT

June 19, 2013: Chamber of Commerce: Safety net spending is a ‘time bomb’, by Jim Tankersley: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is worried that not enough Americans are worried about social safety net spending. The nation’s largest business lobbying group launched a renewed effort Wednesday to reduce projected federal spending on safety-net programs, labeling them a “ticking time bomb” that, left unchanged, “will bankrupt this nation.” BULLSHIT

On June 15, 2014: CBN News: “The United States of Debt: A Ticking Time Bomb” BULLSHIT

On June 18, 2015: The ticking economic time bomb that presidential candidates are ignoring: Fortune Magazine, Shawn Tully, BULLSHIT

On February 10, 2016, The Daily Bell: “Obama’s $4.1 Trillion Budget Is Latest Sign of America’s Looming Collapse” BULLSHIT

On January 23, 2017: Trump’s ‘Debt Bomb‘: Deficit May Grow, Defense Budget May Not, By Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr. BULLSHIT

On January 27, 2017: America’s “debt bomb is going to explode.” That’s according to financial strategist Peter Schiff. Schiff said that while low interest rates had helped keep a lid on U.S. debt, it couldn’t be contained for much longer. Interest rates and inflation are rising, creditors will demand higher premiums, and the country is headed “off the edge of a cliff.” BULLSHIT

On April 28, 2017: Debt in the U.S. Fuel for Growth or Ticking Time Bomb?, American Institute for Economic Research, by Max Gulker, PhD – Senior Research Fellow, Theodore Cangeros BULLSHIT

February 16, 2018 America’s Debt Bomb By Andrew Soergel, Senior Reporter: Conservatives and deficit hawks are hurling criticism at Washington for deepening America’s debt hole. BULLSHIT

April 18, 2018 By Alan Greenspan and John R. Kasich: “Time is running short, and America’s debt time bomb continues to tick.” BULLSHIT

January 10, 2019, Unfunded Govt. Liabilities — Our Ticking Time Bomb. By Myra Adams, Tick, tick, tick goes the time bomb of national doom. BULLSHIT

January 18, 2019; 2019 Is Gold’s Year To Shine (And The Ticking U.S. Debt Time-Bomb) By Gavin Wendt BULLSHIT

April 10, 2019, The National Debt: America’s Ticking Time Bomb. TIL Journal. Entire nations can go bankrupt. One prominent example was the *nation of Greece which was threatened with insolvency a decade ago. Greece survived the economic crisis because the European Union and the IMF bailed the nation out. BULLSHIT

July 11, 2019: National debt is a ‘ticking time bomb ‘: Sen. Mike Lee BULLSHIT

SEP 12, 2019, Our national ticking time bomb, By BILL YEARGIN SPECIAL TO THE SUN SENTINEL | At some point, investors will become concerned about lending to a debt-riddled U.S., which will result in having to offer higher interest rates to attract the money. Even with rates low today, interest expense is the federal government’s third-highest expenditure following the elderly and military. The U.S. already borrows all the money it uses to pay its interest expense, sort of like a Ponzi scheme. Lack of investor confidence will only make this problem worse. BULLSHIT

JANUARY 06, 2020, National debt is a time bomb, BY MARK MANSPERGER, Tri City Herald | The increase in the U.S. deficit last year was about $1.1 trillion, bringing our total national debt to more than $23 trillion! This fiscal year, the deficit is forecasted to be even higher, and when the economy eventually slows down, our annual deficits could be pushing $2 trillion a year! This is financial madness. there’s not going to be a drastic cut in federal expenditures — that is, until we go broke — nor are we going to “grow our way” out of this predicament. Therefore, to gain control of this looming debt, we’re going to have to raise taxes. BULLSHIT

February 14, 2020, OMG! It’s February 14, 2020, and the national debt is still a ticking time bomb! The national debt: A ticking time bomb? America is “headed toward a crisis,” said Tiana Lowe in WashingonExaminer.com. The Treasury Department reported last week that the federal deficit swelled to more than $1 trillion in 2019 for the first time since 2012. Even more alarming was the report from the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicting that $1 trillion deficits will continue for the next 10 years, eventually reaching $1.7 trillion in 2030 BULLSHIT

April 26, 2020, ‘Catastrophic’: Why government debt is a ticking time bomb, Stephen Koukoulas, Yahoo Finance [Re. Monetarily Sovereign Australia’s debt.] BULLSHIT

August 29, 2020, LOS ANGELES, California: America’s mountain of debt is a ticking time bomb. The United States not only looks ill, but also dead broke. To offset the pandemic-induced “Great Cessation,” the U.S. Federal Reserve and Congress have marshalled staggering sums of stimulus spending out of fear that the economy would otherwise plunge to 1930s soup kitchen levels. Assuming that America eventually defeats COVID-19 and does not devolve into a Terminator-like dystopia, how will it avoid the approaching fiscal cliff and national bankruptcy? BULLSHIT

April 16, 2021, NATIONAL POLICY: ECONOMY AND TAXES / MARK ALEXANDER / The National Debt Clock: A Ticking Time Bomb: At the moment, our national debt exceeds $28 TRILLION — about 80% held as public debt and the rest as intragovernmental debt. That is $225,000 per taxpayer. Federal annual spending this year is almost $8 trillion, and more than half of that is deficit spending — piling on the national debt. BULLSHIT

June 17, 2022, Time Bomb On National Debt Is Counting Down Faster Thanks To Fed’s Rate Hike, Tim Brown /We are now staring down the barrel of the end of the U.S. economy based on fiat money, printed out of thin air but charged back to the people at ridiculous interest rates. BULLSHIT

Now, the national debt is approaching $31 trillion, which is $12 trillion more than when Donald Trump took office in 2017, and more than half of that debt was tacked on in his final year. Then we’ve had the disastrous year and a half of Joe Biden. Now, the Fed is hiking its rates, and that spells even more trouble for the national debt and the economy at large. BULLSHIT

December 4, 2022 America’s ticking time bomb: $66 trillion in debt that could crash the economy By Stephen Moore, The national debt is $31 trillion when including Social Security’s and Medicare’s unfunded liabilities. Wake up, America. BULLSHIT

That ticking sound you’re hearing is the American debt time bomb that, with each passing day, is getting precariously close to detonating and crashing the US economy. BULLSHIT

January 13, 2023. A ticking time bomb in the U.S. economy is running perilously close to detonation. Long considered a harbinger of bad luck, Friday, January 13 came with a warning for Congress that the country could default on its debt as soon as June. BULLSHIT

February 5, 2023, ‘The world’s largest Ponzi scheme’: Peter Schiff just blasted the US debt ceiling drama. Here are 3 assets he trusts amid major market uncertainty. Story by Bethan Moorcraft, A ticking time bomb in the U.S. economy is running perilously close to detonation. With the U.S. reaching its debt limit of $31.4 trillion on Jan. 19, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged lawmakers to increase or suspend the debt ceiling. BULLSHIT

April 22, 2023 The Debt Ceiling Debate Is About More Than Debt, Jim Tankersley, WASHINGTON — Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California has repeatedly said that he and his fellow House Republicans are refusing to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, and risking economic catastrophe, to force a reckoning on America’s $31 trillion national debt. “Without exaggeration, America’s debt is a ticking time bomb that will detonate unless we take serious, responsible action,” he said this week. BULLSHIT

November 3, 2023 The Fuse on America’s Debt Bomb Just Got Shorter, J Antoni Heritage Organization. The Treasury is now on track to borrow almost as much in just six months as it did in the previous 12 months. That’s nearly a doubling of the deficit. Because the federal debt is $33.7 trillion, just a 1 percent increase in yields adds $337 billion to the annual cost of servicing the debt over time. Absent spending reform, eventually no one will be willing to hold the bomb anymore, and the yields on U.S. debt will begin to resemble those in Argentina. BULLSHIT

February 2, 2024 How Florida can help defuse the nation’s debt bomb By BARRY W. POULSON, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Colorado Boulder and DAVID M. WALKER, former comptroller general of the United States. Washington’s out-of-control spending, combined with fiscal and monetary policies have resulted in trillion-dollar-plus annual deficits, over $34 trillion in federal debt, over $125 trillion in total federal liabilities and unfunded obligations, and excess inflation. Excessive spending and loose monetary policy increase inflation in the short term, and mounting debt burdens serve to reduce future economic growth and shift the economic burden and consequences of mounting debt burdens to future generations. BULLSHIT

February 8, 2024 Legendary investor Paul Tudor Jones says a ‘debt bomb’ is about to go off in the U.S.: ‘We’re fast-pouring consumption like crazy’. The U.S. economy may seem like it’s firing on all cylinders, but underneath the surface, a “debt bomb” could be on the verge of exploding, according to billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones. The esteemed investor said in an interview with CNBC that he couldn’t deny the economy was strong, but that it was actually “on steroids” due to massive government spending and borrowing. BULLSHIT

Jones is not the only one to call attention to the growing deficit issue in the U.S. On Sunday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell took a rare dive into politics, telling CBS’s 60 Minutes that the national debt was “growing faster than the economy,” and calling for lawmakers to get the federal government “back on a sustainable fiscal path.” Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said she is not yet worried about the increasing national debt as long as the government keeps in check the net payments it makes on its debt relative to GDP. BULLSHIT

Those payments are projected to rise from 2.5% last year to 2.9% next year, according to the Office of Management and Budget, below their level in the early 1990s. Jones told CNBC that the strong economy could postpone the effects of the government’s deficit spending, but only for a little while. “The only question is … when does that manifest itself in markets?” he added. BULLSHIT

“It could be this year, it could be next year. Productivity may mask, and it might be three or four years from now. But clearly, clearly we’re on an unsustainable path.” BULLSHIT

June 21, 2024 My Weekly Column: Our debt crisis is a ticking time bomb by Randy Feenstra: On June 18, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) – the government agency tasked with monitoring our nation’s fiscal health – confirmed my serious concerns with President Biden’s reckless spending agenda. BULLSHIT

His administration’s fiscal policies have not only caused cumulative inflation to skyrocket by over 20% since he took office, but they have also accelerated our accumulation of debt to levels that are beyond unsustainable. Instead of changing course, he recently released his budget for Fiscal Year 2025, which has a $ 7.3 trillion price tag and looks to raise taxes on our families, farmers, and businesses to the tune of $5.5 trillion. BULLSHIT

The CBO estimates that his debt “cancellation” policies will cost taxpayers nearly $400 billion over the next ten years. I strongly oppose these bailouts. Iowans who never attended college, entered the workforce early, or helped put their kids through school should not be forced to pick up the tab for President Biden’s costly and unfair executive orders. BULLSHIT

July 22, 2024 Federal debt is the ticking bomb in your wallet By E.J. Antoni a public finance economist and the Richard F. Aster fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a senior fellow at Unleash. The federal government is already running $2 trillion annual deficits, driving up interest on the debt exponentially. The time bomb of federal finance has already started ticking down. BULLSHIT

October 10, 2024, U.S. Debt Bomb is ticking louder by Nick Beams, World Socialist Website. The immediate economic question is: when will the rise in US government debt give rise to a crisis for the US dollar, a major meltdown in the market for debt, the Treasury bond market, or some other area of the financial system? Government debt is now heading towards $36 trillion and increasing at a pace that is regarded as “unsustainable” by Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, along with many others. BULLSHIT

May 30, 2025 DEFICIT DANGER. BOJ governor warns US debt time bomb outweighs trade war risks. By Dashan Hendricks. BANK of Jamaica (BOJ) governor Richard Byles has issued a stark warning that America’s spiralling budget deficits now present a more severe danger to the global economy than ongoing trade conflicts, as the world’s largest economy grapples with its third credit rating downgrade since 2011. His comments follow Moody’s recent decision to cut the US government’s credit rating from its top-tier Aaa to Aa1, citing concerns over its US$36-trillion debt burden, which now exceeds the nation’s US$30 trillion GDP. BULLSHIT

August 12, 2025 Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) Nancy Mace’s Debt Alarm Tweet was hit with a fact-check after warning on social media that the U.S. national debt had reached $37 trillion, calling it “a bill our kids can’t afford to pay.” The post, shared on Twitter, received over 2 million views and framed the soaring debt as a dire generational crisis.

(No kids will pay the national debt.) It’s not debt, and it’s paid by returning the dollars already in storage.

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The above articles contain the same old BULLSHIT (“unsustainable,” “cost taxpayers,” “our kids will pay”) that they’ve been telling us since 1940. To buttress their lies, they make false comparisons to family finances or the finances of other monetarily non-sovereign entities like businesses or euro nations.

They have been wrong, repeatedly wrong, for all those years. If we wait long enough, perhaps something might happen to prove them right, perhaps in a thousand years? Today, this makes “only” 85 years of the debt nuts’ BULLSHIT.

The federal deficit yields economic growth year after year. When deficits are insufficient, we have had recessions, which were cured by increased deficits.

If respected economists keep predicting something terrible is imminent year after year, yet exactly the opposite happens, at what point do they reexamine their beliefs?

At what point does the public say, “Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me repeatedly for 85 years; shame on me. This is just a steaming pile of BULLSHIT“?

Whew, I feel a little better, now — but just a little.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell; MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell; https://www.academia.edu/

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Ignorance is suicide

In economics, as in most other fields, ignorance leads to failure and to further ignorance. Nowhere is this more evident than in discussions about the so-called “national debt,” which is neither national nor debt.

The following article appeared in the June 2, 2025 Florida Sun Sentinel:

Can Trump manage national debt? Several investors, GOP senators and Musk have doubts By Josh Boak Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump faces the challenge of convincing Republican senators, global investors, voters and even Elon Musk that he won’t bury the federal government in debt with his multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package.

The response so far from financial markets has been skeptical as Trump seems unable to trim deficits as promised. The overall national debt stands at more than $36.1 trillion.

Mr. Josh Boak seems to misunderstand the difference between federal financing and personal financing. He insists our Monetarily Sovereign federal government is at risk of being “buried in debt.“

The federal government is Monetarily Sovereign. That means it never can run short of dollars. It could continue spending at its current rate, or even at three times its current rate, forever.

Your city, county, and state can be buried in debt. Your business can be buried in debt. You can be burning in debt, as can I. We are monetarily non-sovereign. We cannot create unlimited dollars.

But the U.S. federal government cannot be “buried in debt.” Not now. Not ever.

Why would anyone want to reduce annual deficits? The government never can run short of dollars, and federal deficits are essential for economic growth.

The most common measure of economic growth is Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The formula for GPD is:

GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports

“Nonfederal” is the private sector.

Simple algebra shows that cuts to Federal Spending reduce economic growth. Federal Spending increases GDP directly, but also tends to increase Nonfederal Spending by sending dollars into the private sector, which spends them.

“All of this rhetoric about cutting trillions of dollars of spending has come to nothing — and the tax bill codifies that,” said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank.

It is surprising that someone titled “Director of Economic Policy Studies” does not understand the fundamentals of federal finance. Mr. Strain appears to misunderstand the differences between monetary sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty.

“There is a level of concern about the competence of Congress and this administration, and that makes adding a whole bunch of money to the deficit riskier.”

Yes, there is a level of concern about the competence of people who believe the government can run short of its own sovereign currency.

The White House has viciously lashed out at anyone who has voiced concern about the debt snowballing under Trump, even though it did exactly that in his first term after his 2017 tax cuts.

Trump often attacks anyone who disagrees with him, despite his limited understanding of economics.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt opened her briefing Thursday by saying she wanted “to debunk some false claims” about his tax cuts.

Leavitt said the “blatantly wrong claim that the ‘One, Big, Beautiful Bill’ increases the deficit is based on the Congressional Budget Office and other scorekeepers who use shoddy assumptions and have historically been terrible at forecasting across Democrat and Republican administrations alike.”

Here is the irony. Rather than imitating Trump by lying, insulting, and criticizing, Leavitt should have stated, “Yes, we increase the deficit because it stimulates economic growth. We draw from the federal government, which has an infinite supply of dollars, and give support to the economy, specifically, the private sector.”

In summary, she apologizes for unintentionally doing the right thing while believing it to be wrong, and then she denies that she is doing it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson piled onto Congress’ number-crunchers Sunday, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “The CBO sometimes gets projections correct, but they’re always off, every single time, when they project economic growth. They always underestimate the growth that will be brought about by tax cuts and reduction in regulations.”

Tax cuts bring about growth because they leave more dollars in the private sector, which is exactly what federal deficit spending does. So why does Johnson promote tax cuts but oppose federal deficits, both of which accomplish the same thing?

Is he really that ignorant about economics, or is he just trying to defend Trump no matter what?

But Trump has suggested that the lack of sufficient spending cuts to offset his tax reductions came out of the need to hold the Republican congressional coalition together.

“We have to get a lot of votes,” Trump said last week. “We can’t be cutting.”

Get it? Trump is saying, in effect, that “we should cut spending, but the Republican coalition seems to know that spending cuts are harmful, so we’ll keep spending, which will grow the economy.”

That gibberish is what passes for wisdom in Washington.

That has left the administration betting on the hope that economic growth can do the trick, a belief that few outside of Trump’s orbit think is viable.

“Economic hope can do the trick?” What trick? Is Boak saying that the Republicans hope economic growth can cure the federal deficit?

How does that work? The deficit is the private sector sending fewer dollars to the government than the government sends to the private sector. How does economic growth cure that? It’s mathematical nonsense.

In the equation, GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports, the Republicans hope that GDP goes up, while Federal Spending and Nonfederal Spending go down!

Would someone please find a 5th grader who will explain algebra to the politicians and Mr. Boak?

Most economists consider the nonpartisan CBO to be the foundational standard for assessing policies, although it does not produce cost estimates for actions taken by the executive branch, such as Trump’s unilateral tariffs.

Tech billionaire Musk, who was until recently part of Trump’s inner sanctum as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, told CBS News: “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”

Musk may understand business finance, but he has no clue about federal finance. The goals are different. The goal of business is to increase income compared to outlay, thus increasing profits. So cost cutting is a viable, even necessary, option.

The goal of the federal government is to increase benefits to the people (by pumping more dollars into the economy). So taxing less and spending more are the best options — exactly the opposite of what a business should do.

In short, the sole purpose of any government is to improve the lives of the people. The purpose of a business is to improve its own life. Totally different goals and totally different abilities. Musk repeatedly proved he didn’t understand that.

To him, “government efficiency” means taking more dollars from the people and giving fewer dollars to the people.

Why do we need a government for that?

The tax and spending cuts that passed the House last month would add more than $5 trillion to the national debt in the coming decade if all of them are allowed to continue, according to the Committee for a Responsible Financial Budget, a fiscal watchdog group.

Translation: The tax cuts primarily benefiting the wealthy, along with spending cuts that hurt middle- and lower-income groups, are projected to inject 5 trillion growth dollars into the pockets of the rich over the next decade.

This estimate comes from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which is a Libertarian organization that opposes providing benefits to people who are not affluent.

To make the bill’s price tag appear lower, various parts of the legislation are set to expire. This same tactic was used with Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and it set up this year’s dilemma, in which many of the tax cuts in that earlier package will sunset next year unless Congress renews them.

But the debt is a much bigger problem now than it was eight years ago. Investors are demanding that the government pay a higher premium to keep borrowing as the total debt has crossed $36.1 trillion.

The interest rate on a 10-year Treasury Note is around 4.5%, up dramatically from the 2.5% rate being charged when the 2017 tax cuts became law.

Tell me this. Why would an entity, with the endless ability to create dollars by simply pressing a few computer keys, ever need to borrow dollars? Think about it.

The federal government, unlike state and local governments, does not borrow dollars. Federal bonds are completely different from state and local bonds, though they use the same word, “bonds.”

State and local governments do borrow dollars, when tax income is not sufficient to pay bills.

The federal government always can pay its bill simply by creating more dollars.

Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody. The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print the money to do that.”

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.” It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell stated, “As a central bank, we have the ability to create money digitally.

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.” You can find it in their publication titled “Why Health Care Matters and the Current Debt Does Not” from October 2011.

Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize–winning economist): “The U.S. government is not like a household. It literally prints money, and it can’t run out.”

Hyman Minsky (Economist, key influence on MMT) “The government can always finance its spending by creating money.”

Eric Tymoigne (Economist) “A sovereign government does not need to collect taxes or issue bonds to finance spending. It finances directly through money creation.”

Every knowledgeable economist knows the federal government cannot run short of dollars and does not borrow (i.e., “dependent on credit markets” as the St. Louis Fed confirmed).

So what about T-bonds, T-notes, and T-bills? Aren’t they borrowing?

No. They are interest-earning deposits, the purpose of which is not to provide spending money to the government. Instead, they provide a safer place (compared to banks and insurance companies) for people and countries to store unused dollars.

The federal government never touches those dollars. So they are not borrowed. They are just held for safe-keeping, and at agreed-upon dates, the dollars, plus interest, are returned to their owners.

Think of them as similar to bank safe-deposit boxes, where the bank never touches the contents.

The confusion arises because the word “bonds” describes state and local government borrowing, while the same word, “bonds,” means federal safety-deposit accounts.

The idea that the U.S. federal government, which created the U.S. dollar, would need to borrow its own dollars from China or anyone is absurd.

(It’s equally absurd to believe that the federal government would need to levy taxes so it could have dollars for spending.)

The White House Council of Economic Advisers argues that its policies will unleash so much rapid growth that the annual budget deficits will shrink in size relative to the overall economy, putting the U.S. government on a fiscally sustainable path.

As the quotes from knowledgeable individuals indicate, the U.S. government always is on a fiscally sustainable path.

White House budget director Russell Vought said the idea that the bill is “in any way harmful to debt and deficits is fundamentally untrue.”

“Harmful to debt and deficits”? Does he mean that increasing the so-called “debt” and deficits is true, but it could be beneficial to the economy (if it were not so skewed in favor of the rich)? Hard to know exactly what he means.

Most outside economists expect additional debt would keep interest rates higher and slow economic growth as the cost of borrowing for homes, cars, businesses and even college educations would increase.

Additional debt (which, as you have seen, is not “debt’) does not keep interest rates higher or lower. The Fed sets the rates arbitrarily in its misguided effort to fight inflation. Accepting deposits into Treasury Security accounts does not affect interest rates.

( Raising interest rates to fight inflation is misguided because it raises business costs, thus raising prices.)

“This just adds to the problem future policymakers are going to face,” said Brendan Duke, a former Biden administration aide now at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank.

Duke said that with the tax cuts in the bill set to expire in 2028, lawmakers would be “dealing with Social Security, Medicare and expiring tax cuts at the same time.”

It’s quite easy for an informed economist to solve the “problems” of Social Security, Medicare, and tax cuts. Just create the needed dollars by pressing computer keys.

The government would need $10 trillion of deficit reduction over the next 10 years just to stabilize the debt, Tedeschi said. Even though the White House says the tax cuts would add to growth, most of the cost goes to preserve existing tax breaks, so that’s unlikely to boost the economy meaningfully.

“It’s treading water,” he said.

If the government wanted to stabilize the misnamed “debt,” it has plenty of simple options.

Simply refuse to accept any more deposits into T-security accounts. The government neither needs nor uses the dollars. They just sit there, safely earning interest.
Enact legislation to add $10 trillion to the General Account, which is the account used for federal payments.
Have the Treasury mint a $10 trillion coin, as it has the legal authority to do so, and deposit the coin with either the Federal Reserve or the General Account.

If It’s So Simple, Why Don’t They Do It?

Here’s why so many smart people can’t seem to solve a simple problem: They don’t want to.

America is run by the very wealthy. What does “wealthy” mean?

“Wealthy” does not mean having a thousand, a million, a billion, or a trillion dollars. “Wealthy” means having substantially more wealth than 95% or 99% (pick your percentage) of the country.

Look at this table of the amount of wealth required to be in the top 1% of Americans:

In the year 2000, having $5 million would have put you in the upper 1%, but only 2o years later, you would have needed to more than double your wealth to be as wealthy.

So, to remain wealthy, you had two options.

Dramatically increase the amount of money you have, and/or
Make sure those below you don’t increase their wealth

If it is difficult to double your money in twenty-five years, consider ensuring that those beneath you do not increase their wealth. This way, your top 1% ranking would remain secure.

How do you prevent them from rising? By convincing them with the false notion that the government cannot afford to provide benefits.

Make them pay for their own healthcare. Keep Social Security benefits low. Don’t help them financially with college, so they either pay the tuition or are forced to work lower-paying jobs.

Consider the FICA tax. You might think you pay half, but in reality, you pay the full amount. Your employer takes FICA into account when determining salaries. FICA represents a significant percentage of your income.

For the wealthy, FICA taxes are insignificant or nonexistent. Why is this the case? To ensure that the Gap between you and the top 1 percent does not narrow.

You hear the government claim that it “can’t afford” Medicare for everyone, Social Security for everyone, or college for anyone who wants to attend. They say this is because the federal debt (which isn’t truly federal and isn’t really debt) is too large, and that deficits need to be reduced. Meanwhile, tax loopholes for the wealthy are being widened.

And government spending causes inflation, so any increase in spending must be paid for by your taxes.

And it’s all a lie, a Big Lie, for federal tax dollars are not used to fund federal spending.

That’s what the rich want you to believe. It’s how they stay rich. Or get even richer.

IN SUMMARY

Unlike state and local governments, the federal government is Monetarily Sovereign. It has infinite money.
It does not borrow the currency it originally created and continues to create by passing laws.
“Federal debt” is neither federal nor debt. It is deposits in T-security accounts, wholly owned by depositors and never used by the government. The purpose is to provide a safe place to store unused dollars. This stabilizes the dollar.
Federal deficits are necessary for economic growth.
Federal spending does not cause inflation; it results from shortages of essential goods and services. Federal spending can alleviate inflation by acquiring these scarce assets.
The Big Lie in economics is that the federal financing is like personal financing. The federal government needs no income. It creates all its income.
The Big Lie aims to benefit the wealthy by increasing the income, wealth, and power Gap between the rich and the rest.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;

MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

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Who cares about our environment? Not the MAGAs.

No further comment needed.

Analysis: $14B in US clean energy plans nixed in ’25 Firms concerned Trump tax bill will jeopardize investments By Alexa St. John and Isabella O’Malley Associated Press
MAGA America

More than $14 billion in clean energy investments in the U.S. have been canceled or delayed this year, according to an analysis released Thursday, as the pending megabill supported by President Donald Trump has raised fears over the future of domestic battery, electric vehicle, and solar and wind energy development.

Many companies are concerned that investments will be in jeopardy amid House Republicans’ passage of a tax bill that would gut clean energy credits, nonpartisan group E2 said in its analysis of projects that it and consultancy Atlas Public Policy tracked.

The groups estimate that the losses since January have also cost 10,000 new clean energy jobs.

The tax credits, bolstered in the landmark climate bill passed under then-President Joe Biden in 2022, are crucial for boosting renewable technologies key to the clean energy transition. E2 estimates that $132 billion in plans have been announced since the so-called Inflation Reduction Act passed, not counting the cancellations.

Last week’s bill effectively renders moot many of the law’s incentives. Advocacy groups decried the potential impact that could have on the industry after the multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package passed.

“The House’s plan coupled with the administration’s focus on stomping out clean energy and returning us to a country powered by coal and gas guzzlers is causing businesses to cancel plans, delay their plans and take their money and jobs to other countries instead,” E2 executive director Bob Keefe said.

The Senate is reviewing the bill, with an informal July 4 deadline to get it to the president’s desk.

Of the projects canceled this year, most — more than $12 billion worth — came in Republican-led states and congressional districts, the analysis said. Red districts have benefited more than blue ones from an influx of clean energy development and jobs, experts say.

“If all of a sudden these tax credits are removed, I’m not sure how these ongoing projects are going to continue,” said Fengqi You, an engineering professor at Cornell University who was not involved in the analysis.

A handful of Republican lawmakers have urged the continuation of energy tax credits, with some saying in an April letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., that a repeal could disrupt the American people and weaken the country’s position as a global energy leader.

The Trump administration has sought to dismantle much of Biden’s environmental and climate-related policy in an effort to bolster a fossil fuel-led “American energy dominance” agenda.

Meanwhile, other countries are proceeding with green investments.

The European Parliament is committing to the European Union Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, a policy meant to prevent “carbon leakage,” or companies moving production to countries where climate policies are less strict.

And the International Maritime Organization is moving toward a global carbon tax on shipping.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;

MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

https://www.academia.edu/

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What if time were a property like mass, charge, or spin?

Humans are unique in that we can believe facts that don’t comport with our intuition.

We intuit that causes precede their effects. For example, if you tip an egg off a table, it falls to the floor and breaks—this outcome is not surprising. However, if the broken egg were to jump off the floor and reassemble itself on the table, that would be amazing.

Magicians mystify us by seemingly defying “natural” laws, making things disappear and then reappear without any obvious explanation.

We expect time to flow evenly so that I can set my watch by asking you what time it is. I expect you and me to run on the same time.

Yet, Einstein’s Relativity demonstrates that movement and gravity each affect time. The famous “twin paradox” shows that identical twins will age differently if one is moving at relativistic speeds or exists in a strong gravitational field.

They will not only seem to age differently, but their time will literally pass at different rates. The traveling twin will return home to find his brother has aged more. Time affects reality.

Quantum mechanics, the science of the very small, presents many counterintuitive facts. Small particles can exist in two different places, simultaneously. They can seem to communicate faster than light speed, instantaneously no matter how far apart they are ( “entanglement”).

Particles can be well-defined or vaguely defined wave-like; they can shift properties merely by being observed without being touched, as exemplified by the double-slit experiment.

Einstein’s masterwork, Relativity, seems at odds with Quantum Mechanics (QE), though both descriptions of reality have been amply verified, countless times, and both make claims that mere observation can affect test results.

When a mathematically proven effect cannot be explained, intuitively or experientially, we may defend it, but always will feel uncomfortable with our explanations. So we continually ask the most difficult question in science: “Why?”

Why do the above effects occur? Why do Relativity and QE not meet in the middle? Why is reality so counterintuitive?

“Why” is often answered by a speculation (What if?), and I’ll give you one, here, one I’ve not heard of, though it well may already have been suggested and even discarded. If you know, please tell me.

What if . . .

Relativity and QE share at least one factor: Time. The speed of light and gravity waves, the simultaneity of entanglement and of particles existing in two locations, the measures of gravity relate to time. (At Earth’s surface, the acceleration of gravity is about 9.8 metres (32 feet) per second per second.)

We think of time as being a river in which everything swims, a constantly flowing river engulfing everything.

But, what if time isn’t a background dimension flowing uniformly, but a local property—like mass, charge, or spin—carried individually by every particle?

In this view, each atom, each electron, has its own “tempo”—its own block of time. These timeblocks don’t always align, especially at the quantum level. When particles interact or entangle, they synchronize their local time states, at least temporarily.

The “spooky action at a distance” we call entanglement may simply be the expression of a shared time, both forward and backward.

The macro world we experience is the large-scale statistical average of countless synchronized timeblocks. It feels smooth, continuous, and directional, not because time is that way, but because differences fade in the averaging process.

Wavefunction collapse, the observer effect, and even quantum uncertainty may all reflect time as a localized variable. The quantum world looks “weird” because we are using a global clock to measure systems that don’t share it.

This view bridges relativity and quantum mechanics not by changing the math, but by changing the metaphor. If time is a property, not a stage, then what we observe is not paradox—it’s parallax.

Moiré Time: A Visual Unification of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics

Summary Physics has long sought a bridge between the smooth spacetime of relativity and the probabilistic strangeness of quantum mechanics.

I suggest that the unifying variable may not be mass, charge, or spin, but time itself. Not as a universal dimension, but as a localized quantum property, unique to every particle, layered across reality.

Visualized as overlapping temporal patterns, like moire patterns. this “moiré time” forms the composite image we experience as the macroscopic world. The slightest move of one pattern has far-reaching and profound effects on the overall moire phenomenon.

That model may clarify why quantum phenomena appear paradoxical to observers embedded in emergent macroscopic time.

Core Idea In relativity, time is malleable: it stretches under speed and bends under gravity. In QE, time seems to be everywhere and nowhere.

Entanglement occurs instantaneously yet obeys causality. The two-slit experiment suggests particles take all paths, simultaneously.

Uncertainty binds energy and time. And every measurement has a temporal component: when it is made defines what it measures.

The energy–time relationship is widely used to relate quantum state lifetime to measured energy widths but its formal derivation is fraught with confusing issues about the nature of time.

What if every particle carried an individualized, internal time structure—a “time block”—analogous to spin or phase? These timeblocks may oscillate, rotate, or interact with others. The macroscopic flow of time, with its singular direction and steady rhythm, could then be seen as a statistical average of many overlapping timeblocks.

This would create moiré-like interference patterns, where the observer’s own time structure interacts with those of the measured particles.

Entanglement would represent a shared or synchronized time pattern, explaining the apparent “instantaneous” connection.

Wavefunction collapse could occur not because of a mystical observer effect, but due to temporal alignment between observer and particle.

Unifying Power Time, in this view, is the only variable that fully inhabits both the relativistic and quantum worlds.

It is common to the changing of clocks in gravitational fields and to the uncertainty of energy in quantum transitions.

Rather than treating time as a background coordinate, we elevate it to a quantum participant. Reality becomes a familiar phenomenon—a moiré of overlapping timeblocks, each pattern contributing to the image seen by each observer.

Conclusion

By imagining time not as a single flow but as a field of local temporal patterns, we gain a new view of a merger between quantum weirdness and relativity. Time re-envisioned may be the only variable rich and strange enough to belong to both worlds, and simple enough to unify them.

What appears to be a paradox may, in fact, be parallax—the artifact of perspective across entangled timeblocks. It may be why observation changes reality.

===============================

Delving a bit deeper

1. Can time be an entangled property?

When two particles become entangled, the state of one particle is instantly related to the state of the other, regardless of the distance between them.

If the properties, spin or polarization, can be entangled, why not time? In fact, in delayed choice quantum eraser experiments, it seems like actions in the present affect outcomes in the past.

The delayed choice quantum eraser is an experiment in quantum mechanics that explores the peculiar consequences of the double-slit experiment and quantum entanglement.
It demonstrates that the behavior of quantum particles (whether they act like particles or waves) can be influenced by measurements made after the particles have been detected.

Maybe what’s entangled isn’t just spin—it’s the timelines of two particles. When you measure one, you’re not just collapsing a property, you’re collapsing the time experience of both particles.

That’s not faster-than-light signaling—it’s shared chronology collapsing into coherence.

It seems time can be entangled—if it’s a property, not a background.

2. Can time be in a superposition?

In quantum mechanics, quantum superposition is a fundamental principle stating that a quantum state can exist in multiple states simultaneously until it is measured.

Quantum states exist in superpositions. Could a particle be in multiple time states at once?

That’s been proposed, actually—there’s a field called quantum time crystals which suggests that, under the right conditions, events may not happen in a definite sequence.

Quantum time crystals are systems of particles whose lowest-energy state involves repetitive motion, and they cannot lose energy to the environment.

So again: If time is a property, it can exist in superposition, just like position or energy, and in fact, that may be another term for entanglement.

3. Can time be quantized? Many physicists suspect that at the Planck scale, time is not continuous.

If it’s discrete, then each “tick” of time may be like a photon of time—maybe even exchangeable, the way photons mediate forces.

Planck Length: Approximately 1.616 × 10⁻³⁵ meters, the smallest measurable length. Planck Time: About 5.391 × 10⁻⁴⁴ seconds, the time it takes light to travel one Planck length.

If time isn’t a smooth flow, but a quantum resource, like angular momentum, that would fit in with the idea that each atom carries its own quantized time structure, like a wristwatch with digital ticks.

4. Can time be non-local?

That’s the heart of the entanglement puzzle. In current theory, properties seem to collapse non-locally, but time is still assumed to flow locally.

But if time is itself a correlatable quantum variable, then non-locality might simply mean: two particles share a single time state across space. There’s no signal—just synchronization

Most quantum interpretations are mathematical patches on a broken visualization: we don’t know what is happening, we just know the math works. But what if time isn’t the canvas but part of the paint?

That might not provide equations, but rather a map for what to visualize.

What would the universe look like if time were a locally defined variable, like mass or spin? Exactly what the universe looks like now. And that is the point. The universe already provides us with evidence of quantum time:

Entanglement is just a shared time state. No faster-than-light communication or hidden variables.
Quantum weirdness is normalized.
Superposition is the time ambiguity demonstrated by Relativity.
Wavefunction collapse is the resolution into one temporal framework.
The observer effect is not “consciousness affects physics.” It’s a clash of local time states.
Twin paradox is not paradoxical—it’s two local time properties interacting through spacetime, not flowing within it.

We posit that the macro world isn’t fundamentally different. It’s just a more synchronized, harmonized average of billions of local time systems. Coherence wins out. Local uniqunesses wash away.

A quantized time could be the long-sought bridge connecting Relativity and QE.

—————————————————————

One last speculation for illustrative purposes.

Consider that time might resemble mass in that it is not fundamental in itself, but rather emerges from interaction with a pervasive field.

While some have speculated that time is composed of discrete units known as chronons, we might go further and ask: What if time, like mass, is not fundamental but arises from a field?

Just as the Higgs field’s excitations produce mass, a “time field” might give rise to both the flow and structure of time. In such a view, the chronon would be not just a discrete tick, but the quantum ripple of that field, a “tempon,” so to speak.

In this view, time would not merely be a coordinate or background dimension, but a derived property—an emergent feature of interactions with an as-yet-undiscovered field, whose quantum excitation (if such exists) might one day be detectable, as the Higgs boson was.

Whether this “time field” is real or metaphorical, the comparison invites a deeper exploration of whether time, like mass, is not something possessed but something conferred.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;

MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

https://www.academia.edu/

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