I have been reading the Libertarian articles in Reason.com for several years and have noticed something odd. Despite ongoing claims that federal spending should be reduced, no data can support that myth.
Like all other debt Henny Pennys, they focus on telling you how big the so-called debt is and how much will be spent on benefits. OK, we get it. The numbers are significant, but why are they bad?
But there never is data. It is all speculation supported by more speculation.
The following article is no exception:
CBO Projects Huge Deficits, $116 Trillion in New Borrowing Over the Next 30 Years A new Congressional Budget Office report warns of “significant economic and financial consequences” caused by the federal government’s reckless borrowing. Merely paying the interest costs on the accumulated national debt will require a staggering 35 percent of annual federal revenue by the end of that time frame. | 6.29.2023 11:00 AM
And what will those “significant economic consequences” be? And where is your evidence?
The federal government is on pace to borrow $116 trillion over the next 30 years, and merely paying the interest costs on the accumulated national debt will require a staggering 35 percent of annual federal revenue by the end of that time frame.
And that’s likely an optimistic scenario.
Actually, it is an optimistic scenario. Mathematically, the more the federal government spends, the more the economy grows. Why? Because the economy is measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and:
GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports
That $116 trillion in “borrowing” is not borrowing. It is the acceptance of deposits into Treasury Security accounts. The U.S. federal government never borrows dollars.
Why would it? The federal government has the infinite ability to create (aka “print”) dollars, so why would it ever need to borrow what it can create at no cost, especially since borrowing requires paying interest?
Alan Greenspan: “There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody. The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print the money to do that.”
Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”
Statement from the St. Louis Fed: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.”
Get it, Libertarians? The U.S. government is not dependent on credit markets. It doesn’t borrow.
Let me rephrase your comment: ” . . . merely paying the interest costs on the accumulated deposits into T-security accounts will require a staggering 35 percent of annual federal revenue by the end of that time frame.
Why is it “staggering” if Greenspan, Bernanke, and the St. Louis Fed say the government never can run out of dollars? Even if annual revenue totaled $0, the federal government could continue spending forever.
Those sobering figures were published Wednesday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as part of the number-crunching agency’s new long-term budget outlook.
The report once again points to an unsustainable fiscal trajectory driven by a federal government that’s addicted to borrowing—even as it becomes readily apparent that the bill is coming due.
It’s Libertarian nonsense. Why is it “unsustainable”? And since the government never borrows, what is the “addiction”? And exactly what bill is “coming due”?
The problem is Eric Boehm, and the rest of the Libertarians do not wish to acknowledge the fundamental difference between personal finance and federal finance.
In short, they don’t seem to understand the difference between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty. And not understanding those fundamental differences means they don’t understand economics. At all.
Are they being devious or simply ignorant? I don’t know. I vote for devious. In my opinion, they have an agenda and are just pretending to be ignorant.
“Such high and rising debt would have significant economic and financial consequences,” the CBO warns.
Among other things, the mountain of debt will “slow economic growth, drive up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, elevate the risk of a fiscal crisis, increase the likelihood of other adverse effects that could occur more gradually, and make the nation’s fiscal position more vulnerable to an increase in interest rates.”
In what way does federal deficit spending “slow economic growth” when Federal Spending increases GDP by simple algebraic formula?
As for interest payments, here’s the Libertarian theory: To acquire the dollars to pay its bills, the federal government needs to borrow. And because it needs to borrow so much, it has to raise interest rates to attract lenders.
Wrong. The government never needs to borrow and, indeed, never borrows. The Fed determines the interest it pays on Treasury Securities, not to attract lenders but to regulate the economy.
Example: Of late, interest on T-securities has gone up significantly, not because the Fed wants to attract more depositors, but because the Fed thinks that’s how to reduce inflation. Interest rates have nothing to do with the government needing dollars to pay its bills.
As for foreign holders of U.S. “debt,” that is a convenience for foreigners. The Fed doesn’t give a fig whether Russia or China deposits dollars into Treasury Bill accounts. The purpose of those accounts is not to give America it own dollars. The purpose is to provide the Russians, Chinese et al. a safe place to deposit unused dollars.
Further, what is the “fiscal crisis” the CBO worries about? The government always can pay its bills. If a creditor were to demand that the U.S. federal government pay $100 Trillion tomorrow, a functionary at the Federal Reserve would press a computer key, and the $100 Trillion instantly would be transferred to the creditor’s account.
The CBO’s erroneous claims end with: ” . . . increase the likelihood of other adverse effects that could occur more gradually, and make the nation’s fiscal position more vulnerable to an increase in interest rates.”
We don’t know what the “other adverse effects” supposedly are. We suspect the CBO has no idea, either.
Finally, the federal government’s fiscal position is invulnerable. It can pay any bill of any size at any time it chooses.
The formula for massive deficits and unsustainable levels of borrowing is actually pretty simple: federal spending that far exceeds what the government collects in tax revenue.
Because the federal government has the infinite ability to create U.S. dollars, it neither needs nor even uses tax revenue to pay its bills. So why does it collect taxes at all?
Three reasons:
To control the economy by taxing what it wishes to discourage and giving tax breaks to what it wishes to encourage.
To assure demand for the U.S. dollar and thus stabilize the dollar by requiring taxes to be paid in dollars.
To make the public believe federal spending is limited by taxes and reduce public requests for benefits
As for #3, the rich who run America do not want the non-rich to receive the benefits that would narrow the Gap between the rich and the rest. The Gap makes the rich rich; the wider the Gap, the richer they are.
Over the past 30 years, federal spending has averaged 21 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a rough measure of the size of the whole American economy, while tax revenue has averaged 17.2 percent, the CBO notes. That’s not great, but the future looks much worse.
By 2053, the CBO expects federal spending to grow to 29.1 percent of GDP while revenue climbs to just 19.1 percent.
From being exposed to the above table, you might be led to believe that Federal Spending/GDP or federal taxes/GDP are essential measures. They aren’t.
The first fraction tells you how much the federal government spends vs. the domestic private sector. What can you do with that information? Not much.
You might wish to increase private sector spending, probably requiring federal tax reduction, which is almost always a good idea. And you should increase exports which need federal aid to exporters, though that might run afoul of international agreements.
What you do not want to do is cut federal spending. That will only reduce GDP, which would only make it worse if you are concerned about the Federal Spending/GDP fraction.
As for the Federal Taxes/GDP fraction, the analysis is straightforward. The more significant the fraction, the worse will be economic growth. Sadly, the CBO complains that the fraction will be getting smaller — Federal Spending will grow faster than GDP — and here is the crucial part: GDP is projected to grow.
Even more importantly, real(inflation-adjusted) GDP has been growing per capita. That means despite all the moaning and groaning from the Libertarians and the CBO, Americans are getting richer. Here are the data:
Real Per Capita Gross Domestic Product
That, my friends, is a picture of a healthy economy — uh, except for this:
The GINI index shows the distribution of wealth. A level of “0” would mean everyone has the same wealth. A level of “1” would mean one person has all the wealth. The graph shows the rich getting more affluent than the rest of us, with only a small drop from 2019 to 2020.
Keep the GINI index in mind when you read about the Libertarians and the Republicans wanting to cut “Entitlements” (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid), school lunch programs, and other poverty aids.
The oft-quoted Federal Debt/GDP ratio is equally meaningless. It compares the amount deposited into T-security accounts by foreign nations, domestic companies, and Americans (aka “Federal Debt) vs. the amount spent by Americans and net imports.
This ratio often is cited as something to be concerned about. Yet it has no predictive or analytic value. A low ratio is neither a sign of a healthy nor sick economy. It is not a prediction of the future nor a measure of the past.
GDP doesn’t pay for Federal Debt, and Federal Debt doesn’t pay for GDP. Yet some so-called “economists” wring their hands when the ratio increases.
The only relationship between the two is when Federal Debt increases, which helps GDP increase, though all the bleating about this ratio would make you think otherwise.
Entitlements are the primary driver of that future spending surge. Social Security spending will rise from about 5 percent of GDP to about 6.2 percent over the next 30 years. Costs for Medicare and Medicaid will jump from 5.8 percent of GDP to 8.6 percent by 2053.
And there it is. The right-wing pitch is to reduce Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The purpose is to widen further the Gap between the rich and the rest.
Financing the national debt will become a major share of federal spending in the next few decades. The CBO projects that interest payments on the debt will cost $71 trillion over the next 30 years and consume more than one-third of all federal revenue by the 2050s.
As Greenspan, Bernanke, and the St. Louis Fed reminded us, it costs the U.S. government nothing to create those dollars; that dollar creation has been enriching Americans for decades.
“America’s fiscal outlook is more dangerous and daunting than ever, threatening our economy and the next generation,” Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which advocates for fiscal responsibility, said in a statement.
The group responded to the new CBO report by renewing its calls for a bipartisan fiscal commission to consider plans for stabilizing the debt.
To a rich guy like Michael A. Peterson, “fiscal responsibility” means soaking the poor and middle-income groups while giving tax breaks to the rich.
Stabilizing the debt” means creating recessions and depressions, during which the rich will buy all those low-priced assets to increase domination over the rest of us.
Here is precisely what happens when we “stabilize the debt” as rich Mr. Peterson wishes”
When federal “Debt” growth (red) declines (“Debt” is stabilized), we have recessions (gray bars). To cure recessions, the government increases “Debt.” GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports.
The national debt reached a record high of 106 percent as a share of GDP during World War II. The CBO projects the record to be broken in 2029, and the debt will keep climbing—to 181 percent of GDP by 2053.
A meaningless graph that tells you nothing about the U.S. economy yesterday, today, or tomorrow.
Even something called the “World Population Review” is hypnotized by this meaningless ratio. Here is what they say:
Typically used to determine the stability and health of a nation’s economy, the debt-to-GDP ratio is expressed as a percentage and offers an at-a-glance estimate of a country’s ability to pay back its current debts.
And here are the examples they give:
Top 12 Countries with the Highest Debt-to-GDP Ratios
Venezuela — 350%
Japan — 266%
Sudan — 259%
Greece — 206%
Lebanon — 172%
Cabo Verde — 157%
Italy — 156%
Libya — 155%
Portugal — 134%
Singapore — 131%
Bahrain — 128%
United States — 128%
Top 12 Countries with the Lowest Debt-to-GDP Ratios (%)
Isn’t it nice to know that all these countries — Russia, Afghanistan, Botswana, et al. — supposedly are more stable and healthy and better able to pay back their current debts than the United States and Japan?
It must be true because that is what the Libertarians, the CBO. Michael A. Peterson and the World Population Review are telling you.
So be sure to tell all your creditors not to pay you dollars because you’d rather receive Russian rubles. Right?
The (CBO’s) projections leave out the possibility that Congress will extend the Trump administration’s tax cuts past their planned expiration in 2025—which would add to the deficit and require more borrowing in the future—or the possibility that Social Security’s impending insolvency will be papered over with yet more borrowing.
The United States cannot become insolvent. Per Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”
Because the U.S. can’t become insolvent, Social Security, a federal agency, can only become insolvent if that is what Congress and the President want.
What the author calls “papered over” normal people would call “paying for,” which the government can do simply by pressing a computer key.
And do you really believe that no Congress or president will hike spending without offsetting tax increases in the next three decades?
If Congress and the President increase taxes they will not “offset” anything. Federal taxes do not fund federal spending. They are destroyed upon receipt, and new dollars are created ad hoc to pay for expenditures.
Under an alternative scenario in which the Trump administration’s tax cuts are extended, and federal spending grows at the same rate as the economy (rather than in line with inflation, as the CBO assumes), the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projects the debt to hit 222 percent of GDP by 2053.
And that 222 percent will have no meaning.
There’s one shred of good news inside the CBO’s latest report, however. Compared to last year, long-term borrowing is expected to be slightly lower. That resulted from the debt ceiling deal struck last month between Congress and the White House.
The deal included spending caps on nondefense discretionary spending for the next two years, and even that minimal bit of fiscal responsibility can have a measurable impact on future deficits.
This is terrible news. A limit on spending growth is, by definition, a limit on economic growth. Could you remember the formula for measuring the economy?
Still, the modest decline in future deficits mainly illustrates the daunting size of the federal government’s debt problem. By 2053, the debt will more than double the size of America’s economy—and, again, that’s only if you assume borrowing won’t increase for any reason in the next three decades.
“This level of debt would be truly unprecedented,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in a statement. “Time is of the essence; we simply cannot afford to keep borrowing at this unsustainable rate.”
May MacGuineas is another Henny Penny paid by the rich to claim that the middle and poor should receive less money.
Good heavens, one needs to learn only five simple facts, and even that seems to be too much for the economic “experts.”
Gross Domestic Product (the economy) = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports
The U.S. government (unlike state/local governments, euro nations, businesses, you, and me) is Monetarily Sovereign. It, and any of its agencies, can only run short of its sovereign currency if Congress and the President will it.
Federal taxes (unlike state/local government taxes) pay for nothing. They are destroyed upon receipt by the Treasury.
Having the infinite ability to create dollars, the government never borrows. The so-called “debt” actually is deposited into T-security accounts. Those dollars remain the depositor’s property, never used by the federal government for anything, and “paid off” by returning them to the owners.
Inflation never is caused by money creation. It always is caused by shortages of crucial goods and services, most often oil and food.
If you understand these five facts, you know more than most economists, politicians, and media writers.
Imagine that everyone in America — you, your family, your friends and neighbors — everyone, could receive health care from doctors, hospitals, rehab facilities, extended care facilities, and all pharmaceuticals and equipment, and never have to worry about cost.
A choice?
Imagine you being forced to choose between your financial devastation vs. sickness or death for your loved ones.
Then, imagine the federal government paying all your health-related bills, leaving you free from worry.
The rich in America already live in such a glorious world, but for most of us, current and future health affordability is an ongoing concern.
Yet, many non-rich Americans oppose even the concept of Medicare for All. Why?
1. It’s unsustainable. Debt fear mongers have been promulgating that myth for at least 80 years.In 1940, when the federal debt was $40 Billion, the fear-mongers were calling it a “ticking time bomb.
“Every year afterward, they have pounded the same lies into our brains: “The federal government will go broke. It’s “unsustainable.” Your children’s taxes will have to go up.”
Today, the debt is $20 Trillion, and the government has not gone broke, and indeed cannot go broke, and taxes have not risen.
2. It’s socialism. Actually it isn’t. It’s progressivism. Socialism is government ownership and control, not merely government support.
The federal government supports many things: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, poverty aids, education, etc. Shall we eliminate them?
Additionally, we do allow many forms of real socialism: The military, roads, bridges and dams, public libraries, NASA, the VA, etc. Shall we eliminate those, too?
3. It will cause inflation or hyperinflation. Although in the past 80 years, federal debt has risen an astounding 50,000%, inflation has averaged close to the Fed’s 2.5% target.
The reason is that the Fed has tools it needs to prevent and cure inflations, among which is: Control over interest rates.
Raising rates increases demand for the dollar, making it more valuable, so fewer dollars are needed to buy goods and services.
While federal “debt” (blue, i.e. deposits into T-security accounts) increased massively, inflation (red) increased modestly.
4. We don’t have enough resources. What this really means is: “If the poor start using doctors, hospitals, et al, then there won’t be enough doctors and hospitals for me.”
These objectors believe that a viable health-care system relies on the poor not being able to afford health-care — that “limited” resources should be reserved for the wealthier among us. This is America?
A nation’s resources grow with the money available to pay for them. Funded by a government’s unlimited ability to pay, resources are unlimited.
5. It will take money and jobs from the health insurance industry. Right, just as public transportation takes money and jobs from taxi drivers.
Some jobs will be added in the federal sector. But in any event, the notion that the poor should do without healthcare so that the insurance industry can keep its jobs is ridiculous. It’s an example of misplaced priorities.
The above are fake reasons, used to conceal the real reason, which is described in the following, brief, “THE WEEK Magazine” (2/22/19) article:
Despite all the attention tech gets, the biggest five insurance and health benefits companies have greater revenues than the FAANGS – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google.
The top five health insurers and benefit managers expect &787 billion in revenue for 2019, compared with $784 billion for the FAANGS.
Pharmacy benefit manager CVS, the biggest of the health-care group, expects revenues of $246 billion.
In short, the insurance companies, that massively bribe politicians with campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later, don’t want the federal government to offer you better, more comprehensive, no deductible insurance at no cost.
One-third of Senate Democrats have cosponsored the Medicare for All Act, which Sanders introduced in September.
Democrats who haven’t cosponsored the bill received 146 percent more money on average from health insurance companies between 2011 and 2016 than those who have ($147,186 to $59,789)
If you’ve been told lies #1 thru #5, there is a good chance the source either is ignorant of economic reality or has been bribed by the health insurance industry.
The most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the richer and the poorer.
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:
The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand Monetary Sovereignty, do not understand economics. If you understand the following, simple statement, you are ahead of most economists, politicians and media writers in America: Our government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has the unlimited ability to create the dollars to pay its bills.
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We all are aware of the euro nations’ financial problems, especially the problems of the PIIGS – Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. We have discussed the fact that because these nations, in surrendering their Monetary Sovereignty, surrendered their control over their money supply. They are unable to create the money necessary to support their economies.
I predicted in a 1995 speech at the UMKC, “Because of the Euro, no euro nation can control its own money supply. The Euro is the worst economic idea since the recession-era, Smoot-Hawley Tariff. The economies of European nations are doomed by the euro.” However, not all European nations surrendered their Monetary Sovereignty. Among the nations choosing to remain Monetarily Sovereign are Poland, Romania, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom.
Here are some sample news items:
Bloomberg; 5/25/11: “Poland’s economic-growth forecast was raised to 3.9 percent from 3 percent at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
5/27/11: According to Capital Economics, a British research group, Romania’s economy will grow by 3% this year compared to a previous forecast of 1%, followed in 2012 by a 2.5% advance. The recovery will be fueled by private consumption, but also by the resumption of investments. Also the research group states that Romania has the second best potential for economic development in the region, along with Bulgaria, Poland and Russia.
OCDE:1/2/11 – Sweden is expected to continue to recover strongly from the recession as high saving, low interest rates and an improving jobs market encourage consumers to step up spending, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Survey of the country.
Bloomberg: 5/26/11: The mainland (Norway) economy will expand 3.3 percent this year and 4 percent in 2012, after growing 2.2 percent in 2010, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said yesterday.
The Monetarily Sovereign nations are doing better than the monetarily non-sovereign nations. No surprise there for those of you who have been reading this blog. The key, of course, is for a Monetarily Sovereign nation to realize it’s Monetarily Sovereign. Not all do.
Why the British economy is in very deep trouble, Financial Times, Posted by Neil Hume on May 26, 2011
Here’s something for the Chancellor and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to chew on: a warning from Dr Tim Morgan, the global head of research at Tullett Prebon, that the deficit reduction plan won’t work and the UK is headed for a debt disaster.
Morgan says sectors that account for nearly 60 per cent of UK economic output are critically dependent on debt (public or private) and set to contract rather than expand. This will render economic growth implausible and means the burden of public and private debt will prove too heavy for the nation to carry:
Over the past decade, the British economy has been critically dependent on private borrowing and public spending. Now that these drivers have disappeared – private borrowing has evaporated, and the era of massive public spending expansion is over – the outlook for growth is exceptionally bleak.
Sectors which depend upon either private borrowing or public spending now account for at least 58% of economic output. These sectors are now set to contract rather than expand, which renders aggregate economic growth implausible. And, without growth, there may be no way of avoiding a debt disaster.
The UK, wisely avoided surrendering its Monetary Sovereignty, then forgot why it did so. It thinks, “the era of massive public spending is over.” Why? It has no idea. It believes it’s monetarily non-sovereign.
This puts the UK in the same position as the U.S., whose politicians, media and old-time economists do not understand the implications of Monetary Sovereignty. Read any article or listen to any politician, and you will not be able to tell whether the subject is a Monetarily Sovereign nation or a monetarily non-sovereign nation. They say exactly the same things about both.
What would you think about an investment advisor who gives exactly the same advice to a wealthy, married old man with no children, as he gives to an impoverished single, young woman supporting five children? If someone says exactly the same things, makes exactly the same predictions, and offers exactly the same advice regarding two diametrically opposite monetary situations, that person is a fraud.
I have just described the debt-hawk media, politicians and old-time economists.
============================================================================================================================================================================================== No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. It’s been 40 years since the U.S. became Monetary Sovereign, , and neither Congress, nor the President, nor the Fed, nor the vast majority of economists and economics bloggers, nor the preponderance of the media, nor the most famous educational institutions, nor the Nobel committee, nor the International Monetary Fund have yet acquired even the slightest notion of what that means.
Remember that the next time you’re tempted to ask a dopey teenager, “What were you thinking?” He’s liable to respond, “Pretty much what your generation was thinking when it screwed up my future.”
Here is the key sentence from an article by Jackie Calmes, Published: January 11, 2010 in the The New York Times: “With popular anger building as big banks show profits and pay sizable bonuses while unemployment remains high, the Obama administration has come under pressure at home and abroad to support a financial transactions tax on institutions and to heavily tax their executive compensation.”
What an amazing sentence.
First, consider the popular anger that “big banks show profits . . .” Would the citizenry prefer bank losses caused by bad bank management? What’s the approved size for profits?
Second, consider the “sizable bonuses.” Banks are businesses. What should they do with profits aside from pay employees and shareholders? Are other businesses held to that standard?
Third, consider “unemployment remains high.” What is the relationship here? Should banks hire millions of people, to get the employment rate down? Or, should banks engage in less than optimal business strategies, like lending to bad risks, to get the profits down?
Fourth, consider the “financial transactions tax on institutions.” Get real. Any tax on a business is passed along to its customers. Ultimately, you and I will pay that tax.
Fifth, consider “heavily tax their executive compensation.” A special tax created just for bank executives? What about a special tax just for Walmart executives? What about a special tax just for executives who live in New York, preferably Long Island?
Nothing could better demonstrate the financial ignorance of the Obama administration. Or if it’s not ignorance, then it’s worse: pure pandering to populist, class-warfare motives. Oh, it temporarily might make you feel good to “get those rich jerks,” until you realize (if ever) that you are the one getting the shaft.
While federal “debt” (blue, i.e. deposits into T-security accounts) increased massively, inflation (red) increased modestly.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 