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Does education benefit America? You might think the answer is obvious.

In 1647, the Massachusetts “Old Deluder Satan Act” required towns in colonial New England to hire teachers. The schools were funded by local taxes to promote literacy, so people could read the Bible.

This is widely regarded as the first law that mandated publicly funded education in what would later become the United States. By the early 1800s, this idea had spread, with other New England states adopting similar town-funded schools, although southern states did not follow suit.

In the 1830s to 1850s, modern free public schooling took shape. In Massachusetts in 1837, Horace Mann championed free, universal education funded by taxes and implemented by professional teachers.

By around 1850, most Northern states had established free public elementary schools funded by property taxes. These schools were accessible to most white children, as racial equality was achieved much later.

High schools came in 1821. The Boston English High School became the first free public high school in the U.S.

Wealthy men throw books into a bonfire, while impoverished children watch.
If we give them a college education, they won’t work in our factories.

By the late 1800s to early 1900s, free public high schools became widespread. Compulsory attendance laws began in 1880–1918, and segregation ended (legally): 1954, Brown v. Board of Education. Truly universal access began in the mid-20th century.

Why was free schooling mandated in the past, while free advanced education is often discouraged today? The answer, as usual, involves Monetary Sovereignty and Gap Psychology, 

Our Monetarily Sovereign federal government has an unlimited ability to create dollars with just a keystroke. It never can go bankrupt or run out of money. However, it often chooses to fund tax breaks for the wealthy rather than allocate resources to education for those who are less fortunate.

Gap Psychology describes a common, almost universal desire to distance oneself from those lower on the income, wealth, and power scale while trying to associate more with those above. This mindset is the primary way the wealthy maintain and increase their wealth. It also ensures that people continue to work even after they receive higher pay.

NEWS BRIEFING Borrowers in default on student loans may see wages garnished

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Tuesday that it will begin garnishing the wages of student loan borrowers who are in default early next year.

The department said it will send notices to about 1,000 borrowers the week of Jan. 7, with more notices to come at an increasing scale each month.

Millions of borrowers are considered in default, meaning they are 270 days past due on their payments. The department must give borrowers 30 days’ notice before garnishing their wages.

The department said it will begin collection activities, “only after student and parent borrowers have been provided sufficient notice and opportunity to repay their loans.”

In May, the Trump administration ended the pandemic-era pause on student loan payments and began collecting on defaulted debt by withholding tax refunds and other federal payments from borrowers.

The move ended a period of leniency for student loan borrowers. Payments resumed in October 2023, but the Biden administration extended a one-year grace period. Since March 2020, no federal student loans had been referred for collection, including those in default, until the Trump administration’s changes earlier this year.

The Biden administration tried multiple times to offer broad student loan forgiveness, but those efforts were eventually halted by courts.

Persis Yu, deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, criticized the decision to begin wage garnishment and said the department had failed to sufficiently help borrowers find affordable payment options.

Given that:
  1. Educated young people are vital for America’s advancement and security.
  2. The federal government does not need or even use any form of income.
  3. The federal government has the infinite ability to create dollars and fund anything it wishes.

Why does the government fund free elementary and high school — in fact, make attendance compulsory — but garnish the wages of our single most valuable future resource, college students?

Free basic schooling still reinforces the social hierarchy. It still supports the Gap. Early public education has been sold as moral and obedience training, workforce preparation, and national cohesion.

It teaches punctuality, deference to authority, and literacy sufficient for labor, not power.

Even in our early days, basic schooling did not threaten the Gap. Elites benefit because it make for more productive workers, fewer unruly poor, and cultural conformity

But college education for the poor is exactly what the rich do not want.

  1. It reduces the fear of losing one’s job, thus:
  2. It increases labor’s bargaining power (which is why the rich hate unions), and
  3. It puts “the rabble” on a par with the rich and weakens employers’ control.

Free college would narrow the Gap.

In this context, a federally sponsored, comprehensive, no-deductible Medicare program that covers every man, woman, and child in America would help close the healthcare Gap.

In contrast, business-sponsored healthcare insurance for workers tends to reinforce this Gap. Millions of workers fear leaving their jobs or making demands of their employers because they worry about losing their healthcare coverage.

The federal government easily could afford to provide healthcare insurance to everyone. However, instead of doing this, it offers businesses tax incentives to provide less comprehensive coverage—just enough to keep employees dependent on their jobs for healthcare.

Finally, the same would hold for federally sponsored, living-wage Social Security for everyone, of all ages. The rich make three false excuses:

  1. It would require tax increases (aka “Who would pay for it”?)
  2. It would cause inflation by adding growth dollars to the economy (Federal spending isn’t inflationary.)
  3. If given a bare minimum stipend, no one would work because the poor have no ambition. (aka, “Keep ’em poor so they have to accept low-pay jobs and bad working conditions.:”)

And things will have to get much worse before the populace begins to understand how Monetary Sovereignty and Gap Psychology are used against them.

 

Only a nation of fools would give a tax break to religion but not to science and education.

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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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

The “waste, fraud, and abuse” myth

If you follow the news, you’ve likely encountered the phrase “waste, fraud, and abuse” numerous times. This saying is often used by those on the political right to support cutting the federal budget, particularly when it comes to reducing benefits for low-income groups or implementing large-scale layoffs of federal employees.

(One never hears those words relative to the tax loopholes that benefit the rich.)

The Epoch Times, Tom Ozimek, Reporter,  12/23/2025

DOGE Says 55 Contracts Worth $863 Million Canceled in Past 5 Days
DOGE has estimated total savings of more than $214 billion since its creation, which it says amounts to roughly $1,329 per taxpayer.

Keep in mind that 214 billion mathematically equals 1,329 per taxpayer, if there are 161,023,326 taxpayers. I don’t know whether there are that many, but the question is irrelevant. None of them saved any money because of DOGE’s actions. Not even a penny.

The reason: Federal taxes do not fund federal spending; it is instead wholly funded by federal dollar creation.

Waste, fraud, and abuse. Trump stands in a burning city, watching the American flag burn.
This is how I fix waste, fraud, and abuse.

Even if the federal government collected $0 taxes, it could continue spending forever. And not just continue, but spend at double or triple its current level, and still not feel a pinch.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) stated that federal agencies have terminated or scaled back 55 contracts over the past five days, eliminating an estimated $261 million in spending tied to what the task force described as wasteful or duplicative services.

We presume that paying a masked Gestapo to arrest, jail and deport people without trial or any other proof of guilt does not fall under the “waste, fraud, and abuse” criteria. Nor does defending Donald Trump against accusations of illegal and unconstitutional actions.

Nor does it cover needlessly and without public approval the destruction of sections of the people’s house, aka the White House.

The canceled and descoped contracts had a combined ceiling value of $863 million, DOGE stated in a Dec. 22 social media post announcing its latest update.

 Among the terminated agreements was a $1.6 million Housing and Urban Development contract for support management services intended to “provide coherent, accurate, comprehensive, timely and current digital news,” according to DOGE.

We certainly should not expect news from this administration that is “coherent, accurate, comprehensive, timely, or current.”

Another cancellation involved a $4.5 million Health and Human Services (HHS) consulting contract for the “coordination of quality and public reporting programs and websites.”

The latest action builds on a series of contract terminations announced by DOGE in recent weeks, as the Trump administration continues its push to reduce federal spending and shrink the federal workforce.

Earlier this month, DOGE stated that agencies had terminated or reduced 43 contracts with a ceiling value of $3.5 billion, yielding savings of $222 million.

Those included a $4.3 million Treasury Department IT contract to “develop a comprehensive strategic narrative and management approach aimed at the Human Centered Transformation and Enhanced Partnerships” and a $29 million Commerce Department consulting contract for program management services.

DOGE estimates total savings of more than $214 billion since its creation, which it says amounts to roughly $1,329 per taxpayer.

There are lies. There are damned lies. And then there is DOGE. Not a single taxpayer in America has been saved even one penny by DOGE and its cuts to federal spending.

Tell me exactly how DOGE has saved you any money.

The task force attributes the savings to a mix of asset sales, workforce reductions, interest savings, regulatory changes, grant cancellations, and the elimination of fraud and improper payments.

The HHS has accounted for the largest share of savings under DOGE, followed by the General Services Administration, the Social Security Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Small Business Administration, according to the task force.

The contract terminations come amid broader federal workforce reductions, part of President Donald Trump’s pledge to cut bureaucratic bloat, make government operations more efficient, and save taxpayer resources.

The so-called “savings” had four bad outcomes:

  1. Service to the public has declined. Try making a call to, or getting an answer from, Social Security, and you’ll see what I mean.
  2. The federal government pumped fewer growth dollars into the economy.
  3. Good people have lost their jobs.
  4. Good people are less likely to seek government positions because of their distrust of the government’s fairness in employment.

DOGE recently reposted a Dec. 16 statement from the Trump communications team saying federal employment had fallen to its lowest level since 2014, down by 271,000 jobs since Trump returned to office.

“Promises made, promises kept,” the post reads.

Forcing 271,000 people to be unemployed should only be a promise if you’re a billionaire, like Trump and Musk, who never need to worry about feeding their children.

DOGE has repeatedly pushed back against reports suggesting that the initiative has been dismantled or sidelined.

In November, the task force labeled a Reuters report claiming that DOGE “doesn’t exist” as “fake news,” stating that voters in the 2024 election gave the Trump administration a mandate to modernize government operations and reduce waste, fraud, and abuse.

There’s that phrase, again, “waste, fraud, and abuse,” repeated endlessly by Trumpers as their mindless, robotic mantra. Except, mass firings have nothing to do with “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Musk’s brainless chainsaw, that idiotic tool he proudly brandished at every opportunity, simply says, “Let’s just impoverish a lot of people and claim success.”

In a recent post, DOGE praised the efforts of U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz, who announced plans for a similar efficiency- and cost-cutting initiative at the international agency.

“We are ‘DOGE-ing’ the United Nations,” Waltz said in a Dec. 17 social media post, announcing plans to cut U.N. staffing by about 2,600 and slash its budget by 15 percent in the first year of the initiative.

Trump always has hated the UN because it won’t bow to his demands. In his 2025 United Nations General Assembly address, Trump sharply criticized the U.N. for having: “Empty words” that don’t solve wars,” saying the institution often fails to act on crises.

He claimed the U.N. is funding an “assault on Western countries, ” and that the UN’s immigration and green energy policies will ruin countries if leaders don’t put borders and sovereignty first.

He repeatedly has claimed that the UN hasn’t lived up to its potential despite “tremendous potential.”

Apparently, Trump believes cutting U.N. staffing by about 2,600 and slashing its budget by 15 percent will improve “green energy policies, solve wars, and help the UN live up to its potential.”

The Epoch Times article ends ironically, with the Big Lie:

“It’s time for the UN to get back to basics: stopping wars and preventing conflict, NOT funding bloated bureaucracy on the American taxpayer’s dime,” he wrote.

It’s not the American taxpayer’s dime. It’s not even the American taxpayer’s penny. It’s dollars the federal government creates at no cost to taxpayers.

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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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

Notice to voters: Ignorant Voting Begets Adverse Outcomes

Ignorant Voting Begets Adverse Outcomes. In the vernacular, if you don’t understand what you’re voting for, you’ll get screwed.

Here are excerpts from an article in the December 25th issue of THE WEEK Magazine:

GOP moderates revolt as ACA subsidies set to expire

The Republican majority is right to stand firm on the credits, said National Review in an editorial. To agree to an extension now would be to accept them in perpetuity, imposing a $350 billion cost over a decade to expand a program “that’s proven a costly failure.”

Most Americans get their health insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, or employer-based plans that will be unaffected.

To gain an “incremental” edge in next November’s midterms is not worth “demoralizing Republican voters who still oppose throwing more taxpayer money at broken government programs.”

The fact is that ZERO TAXPAYER MONEY is used for Obamacare or for any other federal program. State and local taxes pay for state and local spending. Federal taxes do not pay for federal spending.

U.S. Uncle Sam sits atop a mountain of U.S.dollar bills, desperately trying to count them with a laptop computer. Severa...
I don’t need your dollars. I don’t use your dollars. I never can run short of U.S. dollars. But the rich tell me to tell you I’m running short, so you won’t ask for healthcare, Social Security, food aid, housing aid, or education aid. That’s what keeps them rich and you, not.

If you don’t understand the difference between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, please don’t cast a vote in the next election until you do. Ignorant Voting Begets Adverse Outcomes.

Republicans who endlessly blast Obamacare as a disaster aren’t “reading the room,” said Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times. The program they deem a “juicy partisan target” has steadily increased in popularity since 2016 and is now viewed favorably by 64% of voters.

And “Americans have voted for the ACA with their feet.” Enrollment has more than doubled since 2018, from 11.4 million to 24.3 million today.

Meanwhile, Republicans, who routinely fail to offer cogent arguments against Obamacare, have for 15 years failed to “conjure up a better program,” instead trotting out one unworkable proposal after another.

State and local governments are taxpayer-funded. States, counties, cities, and school districts cannot create dollars. They must obtain dollars before spending

They obtain dollars from taxes, fees, borrowing, and federal transfers. They only are currency users, just like households and firms.

If tax revenue falls, they must cut services, raise taxes, or borrow. So, for monetarily non-sovereign entities, the question, “How will you pay for it?” is a constraint.

The Monetarily Sovereign federal government is a currency issuer.

The U.S. federal government issues the U.S. dollar and spends by crediting bank accounts, which it can do endlessly, without collecting taxes. It does not need to “get” dollars from anywhere first.

The operational sequence is: Congress and the President authorize spending. The Treasury instructs the Fed to mark up bank reserves. New dollars come into existence.

Taxes and bond sales happen after spending, not before. No federal spending is funded by taxpayers.

The sole purposes of federal taxes are to create demand for dollars (you must get them to pay taxes) and to control the economy (sin taxes, carbon taxes, etc.)

Federal taxes do not provide the dollars that the federal government spends.

When politicians say, “This program must be paid for,” “This is unsustainable,” or “This increases the deficit,” they speak as if the federal government were a household.

“Pay-fors” exist because voters have been trained to think that, because money is scarce to them, it also is scarce to the Monetarily Sovereign federal government, the original inventor of the dollar.

This training comes from the very rich, who do not want the rest of America to understand these facts: The federal government could easily, without taxing, fund no-deductible Medicare for everyone, a far more generous Social Security for everyone, plus food aid, housing aid, and education aid for everyone.

The rich promulgate the “Big Lie in economics” (that the government should avoid deficit spending) because of Gap Psychology, the desire to distance oneself from those below and to be nearer to those above.

The very basis of economics can be found in Monetary Sovereignty and Gap Psychology, two fundamentals that seldom are discussed by the media, politicians, or universities.

Strip away the rhetoric, and everything we’ve been circling collapses to those two ideas—one technical, one psychological—and both are systematically avoided.

Monetary Sovereignty explains why the federal government cannot run out of dollars, why “funding” is a misnomer at the federal level, why deficits are normal, necessary, and beneficial, and why state/local governments are fundamentally different creatures.

If this were taught plainly, “How will you pay for it?” would disappear as a serious question, austerity would be recognized as a terrible policy choice, not a necessity, and entire political platforms would collapse overnight.

So, it is not taught because it is destabilizing to the upper income/wealth/power structures.

Gap Psychology, the emotional engine underneath, explains why people resist Monetary Sovereignty even when shown the mechanics. “Rich” is a comparison. To become richer, other groups must become relatively poorer. You must gain wealth, and/or others must lose wealth.

Understanding why media often shy away from discussing Monetary Sovereignty and Gap Psychology opens a window to important social dynamics.

Media platforms typically depend on advertising revenue, influential connections, and maintaining good relationships with established institutions, which are often in the hands of the wealthy.

Embracing Monetary Sovereignty can significantly alleviate poverty and reduce the number of people in the underprivileged class. It invites us to rethink the fear surrounding “debt,” challenges the misplaced idea of federal “fiscal responsibility,” and shows how austerity measures can disproportionately affect the less fortunate.

Gap Psychology encourages us to look beyond surface-level budget debates and reveals the underlying power dynamics at play.

Unfortunately, the media sometimes frame government deficits as analogous to household debt, celebrating “hard choices” that often place a heavier burden on those who are struggling.

By understanding these concepts, we can foster a more equitable dialogue for all.

Why schools avoid it
The very wealthy contribute to schools through endowments, which leads these institutions to treat money as a scarce resource. This approach blurs the distinction between the issuer and the user of money, while also avoiding discussions about political economics.

If students were taught about Monetary Sovereignty, they might begin to ask important questions, such as, “Why do we allow poverty?” “Why is healthcare limited?” and “Why is Social Security so inadequate and taxed?”

Those questions are dangerous in a system built on the convenient myth that the poor are lazy slackers who, if given help, would refuse to work.

Discussions about Obamacare were never truly about healthcare or federal debt. They focused on whether the federal government should bypass arbitrary budget constraints, whether inequality is essential for “fiscal discipline,” and whether the wealth Gap can be narrowed without moral decline.

Monetary Sovereignty says “yes”, while Gap Psychology tells that many individuals negatively impacted by federal spending limits have been conditioned to accept these limits as necessary.

SUMMARY

Monetary Sovereignty explains what is possible. Gap Psychology explains why it is resisted.

Everything else—“unfunded,” “hard choices,” “belt-tightening,” “taxpayer money”—is narrative scaffolding built to protect the rich from the rest.

That’s not economics. That’s the sociology of a dictatorship.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Today’s question: Why would any nation give a tax break to religion but not to science and education?

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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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

Official portrait: The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court plus the other nine justices.

OFFICIAL PORTRAIT

Trump is a justice on today's modern Supreme Court. There are 9 justices. Trump is sitting with the other 9 current just...

Suitable for Hanging

To honor the United States justice system, you may wish to hang this portrait in a prominent location where it will be seen and remembered by patriotic, compassionate, loyal Americans.