Donald Trump wishes to deport all undocumented immigrants, not just criminals but all, including those families that have worked, paid taxes, been assets to our economy, and broken no laws. He also wishes to deport birthright children.

Here is Trump’s America in two pictures. Will this be your America?

Use good sense, not slogans, on Social Security shortfall

Social Security is not a Red-Blue issue. Although wrapped in Washington rhetoric about the budget deficit, at its heart, it’s not a political issue, either. For millions of Americans, Social Security is a matter of survival. It’s especially true for the growing number of South Florida seniors relying on Social Security checks to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. Left unaddressed, a budget shortfall could leave retirees with roughly 79% of their benefits starting in eight years.

Key political figures would like to place the burden of that failure and any fix on the backs of beneficiaries. Cut benefits, goes the argument, because only that will solve the problem. Don’t believe a word of it.

The shortfall is serious. It is also manageable without taking money away from people who earned it. But you wouldn’t know it to hear the rising chorus of budget axe-wielders.

Rep. Rich McCormick, who represents one of Georgia’s wealthiest counties, announced it was time to make “some hard decisions.” “We know how to do it,” he said. “We just have to have the stomach to actually take those challenges on.” Utah Sen. Mike Lee, once on Donald Trump’s short list for attorney general, railed against it on X, decrying it as a Ponzi scheme, a term Donald Trump once used.

1. They help the government control the economy by penalizing what the government wishes to discourage, and by giving tax breaks to what the government wishes to reward, and
2. They help create demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring dollars be used for tax payments.

Former Federal Reserve 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.”

“Interesting thread,” replied Trump-whisperer Elon Musk, who has done his own railing against “entitlement” programs as he searches for $2 trillion in budget cuts on Trump’s behalf. “Everyone’s going to have to take a haircut,” said Musk, the richest man in the world. (Everyone, except Musk).

Trump has pledged to eliminate Social Security taxes while leaving benefits untouched. It would be a well-intentioned disaster, generating pennies in benefits.

Household incomes between $32,000 and $60,000 would get an average break of just $90. Only households with income of $5 million or more would get a solid break of about $2,500.

Worse, Medicare reserves would run dry in five years instead of 11, leading to payment cuts. Social Security checks would be shorted starting in 2032, not 2033.

A federal trust fund is an accounting mechanism used by the federal government to track earmarked receipts (money designated for a specific purpose or program) and corresponding expenditures. The largest and best-known trust funds finance Social Security, portions of Medicare, highways and mass transit, and pensions for government employees. Federal trust funds bear little resemblance to their private-sector counterparts, and therefore the name can be misleading. A “trust fund” implies a secure source of funding. However, a federal trust fund is simply an accounting mechanism used to track inflows and outflows for specific programs. In private-sector trust funds, receipts are deposited and assets are held and invested by trustees on behalf of the stated beneficiaries. In federal trust funds, the federal government does not set aside the receipts or invest them in private assets. Rather, the receipts are recorded as accounting credits in the trust funds, and then combined with other receipts that the Treasury collects and spends. Further, the federal government owns the accounts and can, by changing the law, unilaterally alter the purposes of the accounts and raise or lower collections and expenditures.

With the clock ticking, ideas abound on how to pick current and future recipients’ pockets.

1. Lower cost-of-living increases.
2. Paying a flat amount below the average benefit, currently less than $2,000 a month.
3. Gamble the entire Social Security Trust Fund by putting it into the stock market and pray that stocks won’t slide.
4. Or let people use their Social Security benefits in an individual retirement account, so that they can personally gamble their futures on the market.
5. There’s the widows-and-orphans solution: Cut survivor benefits for minor children, widows and widowers. All were floated by the General Accounting Office. (But there are other ideas, and Florida members of Congress and senators have an obligation to seriously address them before any talk of cuts.)
6. First, significantly raise or eliminate Social Security’s cap on taxable wages. Right now, anyone earning more than $176,100 doesn’t pay payroll taxes on income over that amount. One piece of legislation addressing the cap could help extend the program’s ability to pay full benefits by 32 years, the Social Security Office of the Chief Actuary estimated last year.
7. It is just one idea among many with broad support, the University of Maryland found. Closing the billionaire borrowing tax loophole would raise $100 billion.
8. Closing just one aspect of the death tax loophole would raise another $100 billion over 10 years, largely from millionaires and billionaires.

   

Don’t expect automatic sympathy for those options by the 11 billionaires and near-billionaires tapped for key posts in the incoming administration — among them, Frank Bisignano, the multi-millionaire tapped to head the Social Security Administration.

They do not have the life experience of having to stand in line at a food bank, where increasing numbers of Florida seniors can be found. And don’t be distracted by bad arguments. The old are not robbing from the young by insisting on benefits.

Fighting for the program now will keep it solvent for young people when they retire. Nor is it unfair to subject people with six-figure incomes to fork over the same payroll taxes tens of millions of lower-income Americans already pay.

Whatever the proposed fix, it will wind up on the Resolute Desk for Trump’s signature. He won the right to sit at that desk in part because he pledged to ease the economic burdens of ordinary people. It’s a pledge we expect him to honor.

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

THE FEDERAL  GOVERNMENT HAS AN INFINITE SUPPLY OF SPENDING MONEY

1. They require premiums
2. Some restrict which doctors and hospitals you can use
3. They do not cover all medical situations.

• Wider Provider Network: Original Medicare allows you to see any doctor or hospital in the U.S. that accepts Medicare.
• No Network Restrictions: You don’t need referrals to see specialists.
• Simplicity: Original Medicare is straightforward with fewer plan options to choose from.
• Flexibility: You can add Medigap (Medicare Supplement Insurance) to cover additional costs like copays and deductibles.
• No Prior Health Denials: Original Medicare generally does not deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions or prior health issues.

• Additional Benefits: Many Medicare Advantage plans offer extra benefits like vision, dental, and hearing coverage, which Original Medicare does not cover.
• Lower Out-of-Pocket Costs: Some plans have lower copays and deductibles compared to Original Medicare.
• Prescription Drug Coverage: Most Medicare Advantage plans include Part D prescription drug coverage.
• Potential Cost Savings: Some plans have $0 premiums and may offer lower overall costs for certain services.
• Managed Care and Wellness Programs: Many plans include coordinated care and wellness programs, which can be beneficial for managing chronic conditions.
• Potential Coverage Denials: Medicare Advantage plans can have more restrictive networks and may deny coverage for services not deemed medically necessary by the plan. They also may require prior authorizations for certain treatments and medications.
• No need to purchase Medigap policies for more complete coverage

• These use commercial healthcare insurance providers, all charging premiums paid or partially paid by employers. In reality, all premiums are paid by employees because employers consider healthcare costs when calculating employee compensation.
• Private healthcare insurance is ruled by the profit motive, which notoriously causes massive claim denials.

• Unlike state and local taxes, which fund state and local government (monetarily non-sovereign) spending, federal tax dollars are destroyed upon receipt. (See: Does the U.S. Treasury really destroy your tax dollars?) Federal taxpayers do not pay for any federal spending.
• Federal taxes have only two purposes, and neither is to provide spending funds to the government. The purposes are:
• To control the economy by taxing what the government wishes to discourage and by giving tax breaks to what the government wishes to reward
• And to assure demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring taxes to be paid in dollars.
• Tax dollars begin as part of the M2 money supply measure, but when they reach the Treasury, they cease to be part of any money supply measure. They are effectively destroyed as they disappear and cannot be measured. (See: If federal deficits are bad, why do we run deficits to cure recessions?)
• The federal government’s infinite ability to create dollars makes it impossible to measure the number of dollars the government has.
• The federal government pays all its creditors with newly created dollars. It sends instructions (not dollars) to the creditors’ banks to increase the balances in the creditors’ checking accounts. When the banks do as instructed, new dollars are created and added to the M2 money supply measure. That (not “printing”) is how the federal government creates dollars.
• The federal government never borrows dollars. Those Treasury bills, notes, and bonds do not represent borrowing. They represent deposits into T-security accounts. The government never takes dollars from the accounts, nor does the government owe the dollars. The dollars remain the property of the depositors. To pay off the misnamed “debt,” the government merely sends the dollars back to the owners, i.e., the depositors. This is not a burden on the government or on taxpayers.

• All data indicate that inflation is caused by shortages of critical goods and services, most often oil and food. (See: The cause of inflation down to the last decimal point WAG.)
• No data indicate that federal deficit spending causes inflation.
• On the contrary, all data show that federal deficit spending cures inflation by addressing the shortages that caused it.

Here’s how Trump and the GOP may try to weaken Obamacare November 21, 2024, From KFF Health News, By Stephanie Armour, Sam Whitehead, and Julie Rovner President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House could embolden Republicans who want to weaken or repeal the Affordable Care Act. Trump, long an ACA opponent, expressed interest during the campaign in retooling the health law. In addition, some high-ranking Republican lawmakers — who now have control over both the House and the Senate — have said revamping the landmark 2010 legislation known as Obamacare would be a priority. They say the law is too expensive and represents government overreach. The governing trifecta sets the stage for potentially seismic changes that could curtail the law’s Medicaid expansion, raise the uninsured rate, weaken patient protections, and increase premium costs for millions of people. 

Private foundations that offer immediate income tax deductions of up to 30% of adjusted gross income (AGI) for contributions. (These foundations only need to distribute about 5% of their assets annually for charitable purposes, allowing the rest to grow tax-free.)

Annual gift tax exclusions and lifetime gift tax exemptions to transfer wealth to heirs without incurring significant taxes.

Instead of selling assets and incurring capital gains taxes, the wealthy can borrow against their assets, which is not taxable while the interest is.

The carried interest loophole allows hedge fund and private equity managers to classify their earnings as capital gains rather than ordinary income, resulting in lower tax rates

Real estate investors can defer capital gains taxes indefinitely by reinvesting the proceeds from the sale of property into similar properties, aka “1031 exchanges.” (When was the last time you ever heard Donald Trump complain that 1031 exchanges were “too expensive” for the government?

Wealthy individuals can use offshore trusts and accounts to shield assets from taxes and protect wealth from legal claims

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY