Can’t leave your job because of healthcare insurance? Here’s news.

Are you in one of these positions? You want to ask for a raise, but you fear you could get fired. Or, you would like to change jobs or quit working altogether.

But you are held captive by your health care insurance. Your company pays some of the premiums, and you can’t afford to pay the total amount yourself.

Or you have a pre-existing condition and will not be able to find another policy. It’s about to get even worse for you and for your company:

Higher premiums are coming. Much higher Data: Kaiser Family Foundation

It cost an average of $22,463 to cover a family through employer-sponsored health insurance in 2022, according to an annual benefits survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Though your employer may seem to pay the $22,463, you actually pay it. Your employer figures those dollars as part of your employment cost and your salary, sick days, vacation days, lunchroom, and any other perks you receive.

If there were no healthcare costs, your employer could raise your salary by that average of $22,463. Instead of paying it to you, he pays it to the health care insurance company.

Why it matters: Nearly 159 million Americans get health coverage through work, and coverage costs and benefits have become a critical factor in a tight labor market.

While families and individuals paid similar amounts for coverage in 2022 and 2021, premiums have increased by 20% over the past five years, KFF said.

And because many premiums for 2022 were finalized in the fall of 2021, before the effects of inflation were clear, KFF expects a higher increase in average premiums for 2023 than what’s been observed in recent years.

A single person paid $7,911 on premiums in a year for their employer health plan in 2022.

Again, while it may seem that you only paid “only” $7,911, you actually paid the full premium in lost wages — wages you should have received, but didn’t.

Between the lines: Employers are making tough choices in a competitive labor market and in some instances, absorbing rising costs of coverage instead of passing them on to workers.

An October survey of 1,200 small businesses found that nearly half of them have increased the cost of their goods or services to offset the rising costs of health care. Four in 10 businesses surveyed stopped offering health insurance altogether.

Angry about inflation? Much of the blame goes to the ballooning cost of health care. You pay inflated costs directly via premiums and insurance deductibles, and indirectly via the lost wages your employer would have paid you.

 

In fact, why do you or your company pay anyone, when the federal government is perfectly capable of paying your doctor, hospital, nurses, pharmaceutical company, and medical equipment manufacturer with no help from you?

You also pay the inflated costs of the goods and services you purchase from companies that have had to raise their prices to cover increased insurance costs.

In short, employer-supplied health care insurance is a net loser for everyone except for the insurance companies.

It cuts your salary while increasing what you pay for goods and services.

 

When the federal government pays, you get more and it costs you nothing.

The cost of care is expected to continue to increase in the coming years, putting added pressure on employers to offer competitive benefits packages.

Employer-sponsored plans have seen increased demand for mental health services, and 44% of companies surveyed with 200 or more employees offered mental health or self-care apps as benefits, accompanying research in Health Affairs says.

Covered workers are picking up a portion of the cost when they visit in-network physicians: Average copayments were $27 for primary care and $44 for specialty care, and there was even more cost-sharing for hospital admissions or outpatient procedures.

A large majority of firms with 50 or more employees cover some telemedicine in their largest health plan. What’s next: Premiums are likely to surge next year as inflation persists.

“Premium increases may be even higher than the 3–4 percentage points that we have seen in recent years,” the Health Affairs study authors write.

It’s the classic vicious circle. The cost of health care goes up which directly increases inflation, Then, inflation pushes the cost of insurance up, which impacts your net salary. And ’round and ’round we go.

Your net take-home pay is numerically reduced by the insurance premiums, while it is functionally reduced by inflation.

Employer-provided health care insurance costs you both ways.

THE SOLUTION The U.S. federal government has infinite dollars. It neither needs nor uses tax dollars to pay its bills. Even if all federal tax collections totaled $0, the government could continue spending any amount, forever.

In fact, all federal tax dollars are destroyed upon receipt.

Without collecting a penny in taxes, the federal government could provide you and your family with free, comprehensive, no-limit health care insurance, that includes everything you can imagine — eyes, dental, psychiatric, every form of health-related equipment, etc.

Your healthcare could cost you nothing, either for services or for premiums. It could be Medicare for All only much, much better. And it wouldn’t increase the cost of goods and services, because, unlike employer-provided insurance, it wouldn’t increase employers’ costs.

Unlike employer-funded medical insurance, which does nothing for the economy, federally funded Medicare for All would grow the economy by adding stimulus dollars.

SO WHY NOT? Why don’t you have this plan, already? 

Because you have been led to believe three lies.

Lie #1. You shouldn’t trust the government to provide health care.

But, a comprehensive Medicare for All plan would not involve the government providing health care. The plan would involve the government only paying for health care.

The actual care still would be provided by your same doctors, nurses, hospitals, therapists, and equipment manufacturers. It merely would cut out the wholly unnecessary and costly middlemen, the insurance companies.

The insurance companies provide no medical function. They merely collect your dollars, take some for themselves, and pass the rest on to the real medical practitioners.

The government would function as your insurance company. The big differences would be no dollars would be taken from you, and the government never can run short of dollars.

Lie #2. Your taxes would go up.

The U.S. federal government, unlike state and local governments, is Monetarily Sovereign. It cannot unintentionally run short of U.S. dollars.

It can spend forever without collecting any tax dollars.

Compare the federal government to state and local governments. They are monetarily non-sovereign. While state and local taxes fund state and local spending, federal taxes do not fund federal spending.

The purpose of federal taxes is not to help the government spend, but rather:

a. To control the economy by taxing what the government wishes to reduce and giving tax breaks to what the government wishes to reward.

b. To create demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring taxes to be paid in dollars.

c. To reduce your demand for services (like free health care insurance), by making you believe taxes are necessary to pay for benefits.

Lie #3. Federal spending causes inflation.

No inflation ever has been caused by spending. All inflations, including the current one, are caused by shortages of key goods and services, most often oil and food.

During and after the Great Recession of 2008, we had massive government spending without inflation. We only experienced inflation when COVID caused shortages of oil, food, lumber, computer chips, shipping, labor and other products and services.

Inflation (red line) doesn’t parallel federal deficit spending (blue line).

If you understood that the federal government has infinite money and does not need or use taxes, you would demand Medicare for All, Social Security for All, College for All, Food Assistance for All, Housing Assistance for All, etc.

Why don’t we have it?

The very rich, who run America, don’t want it. They are rich because of the income/wealth/power Gap between them and you. The wider the Gap, the richer they are. But the more free benefits you receive, the narrower the Gap becomes.

Your free benefits actually make the rich less rich.

So the rich bribe the politicians (via campaign contributions and promises of employment), the media (via advertising dollars and media ownership), and the economists (via donations to schools and employment in think tanks).

The rich bribe these people to tell you “the Big Lie” that federal taxes fund federal spending, and if you want more benefits you’ll have to pay for them.

It’s all a con to keep you ignorant. An ignorant public is a docile public, which is exactly what the rich want. It keeps them rich.

Sen. Bernie Sanders recommended a Medicare for All plan, but his plan had three serious faults:

Fault #1. It claimed to rely on tax collections, the same fault current Medicare has. So Sanders struggled to show how it was tax-neutral.

That was unnecessary. He should have explained that federal taxes do not fund federal spending and that the federal government would do what it always does: Create dollars, ad hoc, to pay every bill.

Fault #2. It was not comprehensive. It still required co-pays and didn’t cover many medical problems. This was done to save money and balance against tax collections — an unnecessary step.

The federal government does not need to save dollars. It has infinite dollars. It never can run short of dollars, even if it collects zero taxes.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”

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.”

The scare stories about federal “debt” and deficits are just that: Scare stories. False scare stories.

So called federal “debt” and deficits are no burden on a government with the infinite ability to pay its bills. If the federal government and your political representatives were doing their job, you would have free, comprehensive Medicare for All right now.

Why do you pay a middleman when the government can provide better service, free?      

 

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

The “Woke” controversy as the GOP camouflage for bigotry

Ask any Democrats what “woke” means, and they likely will say they don’t know. Ask any Republican the same question, and they will say, “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.“

George Wallace stood in schoolhouse door 52 years ago today - al.com
Part of American history; George Wallace blocked a schoolhouse door to prevent black children from entering. DeSantis doesn’t want your children to know.

Merriam-Webster added the word “woke” to its dictionary in 2017, defining it as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice.”)

The Oxford dictionary adopted it the same year, defining it as “alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice.”

Those definitions seem benign enough unless one is a bigot, in which case the words seem threatening and too close to home.

This brings us to the related concept, “Critical Race Theory.” Per Brittanica:

Critical race theory (CRT) was officially organized in 1989, at the first annual Workshop on Critical Race Theory, though its intellectual origins go back much farther, to the 1960s and ’70s.

Its immediate precursor was the critical legal studies (CLS) movement, which dedicated itself to examining how the law and legal institutions serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the poor and marginalized.

(CRT is) based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour.

And this division, whether social or biological, leads to legally social problems.

    • African Americans and Hispanic Americans (Latinxs), for example, are on average more likely than similarly qualified white persons to be denied loans or jobs;
    • they tend to pay more than whites for a broad range of products and services
    • they are more likely than whites to be unjustly suspected of criminal behaviour by police or private (white) citizens
    • and they are more likely than whites to be victims of police brutality, including the unjustified use of lethal force.
    • If convicted of a crime, people of colour, particularly African Americans, are generally imprisoned more often and for longer periods than whites who are found guilty of the same offenses.

These are facts in America. They cannot and should not be denied. Exposing these facts, particularly to young people, is the first and necessary step toward reducing, if not ending, the evils of racism.

Critical race theorists hold that racism is inherent in the law and legal institutions of the United States insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.

America has a long history of racism, beginning with our negative attitudes toward native Americans (aka “Indians”) and later toward blacks, browns, and yellows. Those attitudes have been encoded into law.

Donald Trump's infamous ad calling for death penalty in Central Park Five case resurfaces in Netflix's 'When They See Us' | MEAWW
Trump’s infamous ad demanding the death penalty for 5 innocent black teens.

Native Americans were legally denied land and forced into reservations, which then repeatedly were reduced in size.

People of color legally have been denied voting rights, legally segregated into “separate-but-equal” schools, legally redlined for mortgages and other loans, and legally mistreated by the police and judges for the most minor offenses.

Japanese Americans “legally” were sent to concentration camps.

These are absolute facts of American history, and to deny them is to deny reality.

Nations that deny their past, especially the shameful aspects, will most likely repeat the evil.

When those with evil intent come into power, their first act is to attempt the erasure of the past, so the populace will not remember the results of evil. (After World War II, Germany, the author of the greatest evil the world ever had known, made their children understand what happened, lest it happens again.)

America has resisted admitting its own sins. America’s bigots have become afraid that their children will learn about racism in America.

That is why Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis created:

The “Stop WOKE Act,” prohibits workplace training or school instruction that teaches:

    • that individuals are “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously”;
    • that people are privileged or oppressed based on race, gender, or national origin;
    • or that a person “bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” over actions committed in the past by members of the same race, gender, or national origin.

The law says such trainings or lessons amount to discrimination.

No school is known to teach that children bear “personal responsibility for, and must feel guilty about our history.” But the Republican party uses that as an excuse to hide the past to repeat yesterday’s racism.

This is what FoxNews, the apologist for the GOP’s racism, says:

DEMOCRATS GETTING INCREASINGLY NERVOUS ABOUT WOKE CULTURE

But the meaning of woke evolved again with the rise of “cancel culture” — as the two terms saw increased use, they became intertwined in the public consciousness.

Often, someone gets canceled after they say something insensitive – something not woke.

The irony thickens. The GOP uses the pejorative phrase “cancel culture” to describe liberals while canceling teachers and schools who teach the facts about American racism. Presumably, the GOP objects to this:

Open any newspaper on any day, and you will see many articles like the above. The GOP, approving racism, calls all attempts to stop bigotry “cancel culture.” Here’s what they don’t call “cancel culture”:

Virginia School Board Members Call for Books to Be Burned
‘Devastating.’ Latina Professor and University Officials Respond to Students Burning Book About White Privilege

Per Fox News:

In addition to meaning aware and progressive, many people now interpret woke to be a way to describe people who would rather silence their critics than listen to them.

The reason “many people” interpret woke as being “cancel culture” is the GOP, and particularly Donald Trump, describe it that way. Repeat a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth in the eyes of the innocent and the needy.

Becoming knowledgeable about racism in America is quite different from the GOP’s Hitlerian book burning, but the GOP tries to link the two.

Donald Trump has led the GOP down the dark whirlpool of bigotry, from which it shows no sign of climbing.

He is a shameless bigot whose sole appeal to his angry base is his hatred of everything, not Trump.

Trump voices the anger his followers feel and the scapegoats they need.

Here Are 13 Examples Of Donald Trump Being Racist.

  1. He attacked Muslim Gold Star parents.
  2. He claimed a judge was biased because “he’s a Mexican.”
  3. The Justice Department sued his company ― twice ― for not renting to black people.
  4. Discrimination against black people has been a pattern in his businesses
  5. He refused to condemn the white supremacists who are campaigning for him
  6. He questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States
  7. He treats racial groups as monoliths
  8. He trashed Native Americans, too
  9. He encouraged the mob justice that resulted in the wrongful imprisonment of the Central Park Five.
  10. He condoned the beating of a Black Lives Matter protester
  11. He called supporters who beat up a homeless Latino man “passionate.”
  12. He stereotyped Jews and shared an anti-Semitic meme created by white supremacists.
  13. He treats African-American supporters as tokens to dispel the idea he is racist.

Trump is an extravagant hatemonger.

Most recently, he has even begun calling his long-time loyal friend, Allen Weisselberg, a liar. (And this is a man who went to jail to protect Trump.)

SUMMARY “Woke” acknowledges the American bigotry enshrined in the law.

Our young people must understand the depth and seriousness of American bigotry and the laws that support it, so they can learn and vote to curtail it.

American hatemongers do not want our young people to understand and seek a solution to the growing problem. The term “cancel culture” has been invented to justify more bigotry-supporting laws.

The GOP has devolved into the Party of Hatred toward all but white male, citizen, Christians. It demonizes any discussion of maltreatment of people not in the “approved” group.

It is the minority party in America, led by a psychopath. But by appealing to the basest elements of the national psyche, it has been able to twist the law to support its nefarious agenda.

In the late 1930s and the early 1940s, Germany and Italy taught the world the horrors of that dictatorial plan. Apparently, America now must relearn those lessons.

Meanwhile, as we are being schooled, we suffer the consequences.

 

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

We could defeat Russia’s army without a single American casualty, but . . .

If someone told you we could defeat Russia’s army without losing a single soldier and without costing American taxpayers one dime, would you be in favor? Since World War II ended, Russia has been an enemy of the U.S. Fortunately, we haven’t been in a shooting war against them, but we have come close. Remember the Cuban missile crisis? With Vladimir Putin in charge, Russia is a genuine danger to America, but we can minimize the threat of actual combat, and our soldiers won’t have to lift a finger. Ukraine is doing the job for us and will continue to do the job unless we genuinely are stupid — which we very well may be. March 11, 2022: 500 Russian soldiers surrendered at Ukraine | weehingthong

Ukraine seeks more help as GOP skepticism weighs on future aid Joseph Morton, The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON — At a Rockwall, Texas, town hall in August, U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon served up plenty of conservative red meat to the right-leaning crowd.

The Sherman Republican roasted Democrats over federal spending, inflation and border policies — as many in the audience chuckled and murmured along in agreement.

But he also faced tough questions on one topic — his May vote supporting $40 billion to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion.

Ten of his Republican House colleagues from Texas voted against that aid package, reflecting skepticism among the party’s base for spending so much money to help another country.

Ukraine war: Bucha street littered with burned-out tanks and corpses - BBC News
Destroyed Russian tanks
“Spending so much money,” which is 100% free. American taxpayers will not fund any of this spending, not one cent. The federal government simply will create the dollars out of thin air, as it always does.
Former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.” 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.” Quote from Ben Bernanke when he was on 60 Minutes: Scott Pelley: Is that tax money that the Fed is spending? Ben Bernanke: 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.”

But Fallon also said he expected that the money approved to that point would be enough to keep Ukraine in the fight for more than a year — and that was before Congress signed off on another $12 billion.

“So I’m rooting for Ukraine,” Fallon said. “I hope they win. I will not be voting for any more money over the next 14 months, because they have what they need for now.”

Of course, Fallon has no idea what he’s talking about. He doesn’t know what Ukraine needs, and since the money costs us nothing, what is the purpose of being tightfisted?

Before leaving for its recess, Congress passed a stopgap spending measure — opposed by all Texas GOP House members — that included a little more than $12 billion to help Ukraine.

Why did the GOP oppose it? Simple  The Democrats proposed it. Period.

The Biden administration recently announced details of the latest package of military aid: a slew of additional munitions, armored vehicles and four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS.

The HIMARS, which have proved key to the fight, come from Grand Prairie-based Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, which builds them in Arkansas.

It’s good for Lockheed Martin. It’s good for Arkansas. It’s good for the American economy. But the GOP opposes it.Ukraine: What are Himars missiles and are they changing the war? - BBC News

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov hailed the arrival of four HIMARS last week, thanking the Biden administration and the American people.

“HIMARS time: good time for Ukrainians and bad time for the occupiers,” he wrote.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called last week for even more support, stressing the importance of having an air shield to defend against an onslaught of Russian missile strikes.

Advocates for supporting Ukraine say the current situation underscores how the United States must keep the stream of weapons and financial support flowing. But a potential new GOP majority next year could make it tougher to get such measures passed.

Polling shows the percentage of Americans who feel there is too much support flowing to Ukraine has increased, particularly among Republicans.

Why is there “too much support”? Because the public has been fed The Big Lie that federal taxes fund federal spending. Read the Big Truth, and remember it. FEDERAL TAXES DON’T FUND FEDERAL SPENDING.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, has voted against Ukraine aid.

He said he is all for finding ways to help Ukraine against the atrocities being committed by Russia, but questioned the amount of money involved in light of other pressing domestic priorities.

We are Monetarily Sovereign. Our federal government has the infinite ability to create unlimited dollars. We can fund Ukraine while funding every other domestic program and still not levy one additional penny in taxes.

Roy said the administration hasn’t provided a detailed explanation of why sending money to Ukraine is in the U.S. national interest, how it will be offset in the budget or evidence it will prove effective in the long run.

Imagine a. U.S. Congressman who doesn’t understand why weakening the Putin government’s military is in the national interest at $0 cost. How did Chip Roy ever get elected to Congress, knowing so little?

He said some of his constituents have flown to Ukraine to volunteer in hospitals, assist refugees and adopt children affected by the fighting.

But they don’t favor a “blank check” for Ukraine, he said, and he’s concerned that’s what the U.S. is providing.

Some of his constituents have risked their lives to help Ukraine, but the GOP refuses to help while risking absolutely nothing — even while supporting the American economy. It boggles the mind.

“We’re literally just propping up the government,” Roy said. “The Communist Party in China is getting money that we’re giving allegedly to Ukraine.

Oligarchs in Ukraine are getting enriched off of our taxpayer dollars, because we’re just dumping money, like truckloads of money. … It’s just mind-boggling that we operate this way.”

Now he’s just making up bullsh*t. He can’t name one “oligarch” who is enriching the Communist Party in China. He must be getting his info from QAnon.

Cynthia Cook, director of the defense-industrial initiatives group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that Ukraine’s success has been aided by the weapons systems provided by the United States, but that the final outcome hasn’t been determined.

“The battle is not won,” Cook said. “The amount of territory that they would have to retake to expel Russia from their soil is still pretty substantial, especially if, as it seems, that they would like to recapture Crimea.

It’s not over until it’s over.”

The longer it goes. Ukraine destroys more Russian tanks, planes, and missiles and kills more Russian soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of Russian men have fled to Norway. Ukraine is weakening Russian morale. It costs us nothing. We could not possibly have invented a better scenario for America. But the GOP wants to stop. They want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Those opposed to more aid need to understand the United States is getting something for its money, she said, namely a more peaceful future if Ukraine’s success helps prevent Russian tanks from eventually rolling into Poland.

We went into Viet Nam. We went into Afghanistan. We went into Korea. We lost many thousands of American men and women. Finally, we have a chance to win a war without losing a single American, and we a reluctant.

“The message is one of ‘we are spending money on a foreign country,’ but at the same time this is a critical fight for democracy,” she said. “It’s pretty important for Europe … if Russia is pushed back from Ukraine and that sort of diminishes the chances of future, more worrisome fights.”

Get it, GOP  Yours is the party that never has a productive idea. Now, when a great one falls in your lap, you resist it. Incredible.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, clashed with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Twitter earlier this year over his support for Ukraine aid.

In an interview, Crenshaw said that the initial price tag brought a lot of “sticker shock” but that the United States has gotten quite a bit in return.

There isn’t even “sticker shock” because the sticker reads $00.00. Perhaps, that’s the shock. And let’s face it, if a nincompoop like Marjorie Taylor Greene opposes it, it must be great. Ask her husband about that.

“Some Republicans would disagree, but their reasoning is, frankly, lacking in substance,” Crenshaw said.

He said that he would like more details and justification on just where the money is being spent, but that the result of that investment has been “enormous” strategic gains.

Right, for an investment of ZERO, we are getting great returns.

“And the fact that that’s lost on people blows my mind,” Crenshaw said.

I share your feelings, Dan, but people still are being fed the Big Lie. That blows my mind even more.

Austin Rep. Michael McCaul is the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which puts him in line to chair the panel if his party retakes the majority in the midterms. He has supported Ukraine aid and said the United States could be doing more.

“Once we finally gave them what they needed, like the HIMARS, they started winning and they’re beating them,” McCaul said. “And I don’t understand [opposition to Ukraine aid]. I grew up during the Cold War and I thought killing Russians was a good thing.”

But he also said that he’s discussed the issue with members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and that they are primarily concerned about the cost.

They are concerned about the cost because they do not understand federal finance. How did these people get into Congress with so little knowledge?

He said it will be his role and those of like-minded members to explain to skeptics and incoming rookie members the importance of keeping the support flowing.

“It’s just an education thing,” McCaul said. “They may not understand what’s going on.”

Well, hurry up and educate them. After that, they also may understand why Medicare for All, Social Security for All, Free College for All, more financial support for the poor, and even life insurance for all are both beneficial and easily affordable. It, too, would cost taxpayers $00.00.

Fallon said he understands the sentiment from some Republicans who feel more priority should be paid to the southern border — he certainly agrees much more needs to be done there.

There need not be a financial “priority.” The federal government can afford both.

But he emphasized the United States does not want to see Putin emboldened. “We don’t want Russia to win,” Fallon said.

Talking about both sides of his mouth, Fallon doesn’t want Russia to win, but he will not vote to help Ukraine win. Our leaders truly are pitiful. With Putin’s help, Ukraine has given us a gift. Pray we are not foolish enough to throw it away. Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

More = less and other Big Lies from the Libertarians

BACKGROUND The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign has infinite money. It neither needs nor uses tax dollars. It never can run short of dollars.
363 Unlimited Money Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images
The U.S. federal government has infinite dollars.
Contrary to popular wisdom, federal taxpayers do not fund federal spending. Instead, the government creates new dollars, ad hoc, every time it pays a bill. The economy does not have infinite money and needs a continual input of dollars to grow. Gross Domestic Product, (GDP) a measure of spending, also is a measure of growth. Federal deficit spending provides that continual input, without which we would have recessions and depressions. Libertarianism is not the most ignorant idea on the planet. Trumpism surely wins the gold medal in that contest. But Libertarianism’s endless insistence that a gigantic nation should have a small government and that every expenditure always, always, always is too large puts them in the running for at least a bronze or perhaps even a silver medal. Here is their latest bit of humor masquerading as fiscal prudence.

Maintaining the Student Loan Forgiveness Application Will Cost an Estimated $100 Million

This latest expense is yet more evidence that sweeping student loan forgiveness will end up doing considerable economic harm. by Emma Camp | 10.14.2022 1:30 PM

While the incredible costs of the Biden administration’s federal student loan forgiveness plan are widely known, yet another expense of the program is stirring controversy: maintaining the online application for loan forgiveness is expected to cost nearly $100 million annually.

This latest expense—not included in the Congressional Budget Office’s recent estimate of the program’s cost to taxpayers—is yet more evidence that sweeping student loan forgiveness will end up doing considerable economic harm.

Why will adding $100 million stimulus dollars do “considerable economic harm”? Ms. Camp never explains why or what that “harm” is. Federal deficit spending is precisely what the government does to prevent and cure recessions. But Libertarians never acknowledge the facts that stare them in the face. Contrary to popular wisdom, the Great Depression of 1929 was not caused by the stock market crash. Nor was it caused by bank failures. Nor was it caused by Smoot-Hawley. Nor was it caused by drought. Nor was it caused by speculation. The Great Recession of 2008 was caused by insufficient deficit spending and years of federal surpluses, which took dollars out of the economy.

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

Eventually, the Great Depression was cured by more deficit spending. Libertarians are oblivious to those facts.
Every recession (vertical gray bar) is immediately preceded by a federal deficit spending growth reduction.
It doesn’t take a genius to see this.
  1. All Spending + Net Exports = GDP. GDP is a measure of our economy. It also is a measure of spending.
  2. Spending relies on dollars. On average, more dollars = more spending. Add dollars to an economy, and GDP will increase.
  3. Federal deficits add dollars to the economy.
  4. Therefore, federal deficits increase GDP and prevent/cure recessions and depressions.

In August, President Joe Biden announced a sweeping federal student loan forgiveness plan.

Under the proposal, most borrowers making under $125,000 annually and married couples making less than $250,000 would receive $10,000 each in loan forgiveness.

For borrowers who received a Pell Grant, forgiveness is increased to $20,000.

The program stands to be wildly expensive, with recent estimates from the Congressional Budget Office predicting that its cost will be $400 billion.

Translation: The program will pump 400 billion growth dollars into the economy. (The program would fail to remove 400 billion dollars from the economy.)

However, as the Biden administration gears up to formally release the online application for loan forgiveness, other large costs are also becoming clear. 

Documents submitted by the Education Department to the Office of Management and Budget show that the department estimates it will cost $99,900,000 per year to maintain the application and the program’s associated communications through March 2024. 

According to the Department of Education, these costs are “related to development of website forms, servicer processing, borrower support, paper form processing and communications related to this effort.”

Translation: The program will also fail to remove an additional 99,900,000 growth dollars annually from the economy.

While the current estimate for application maintenance and support is high, there is reason for concern that the cost will come to exceed that.

For example, the ill-fated HealthCare.gov website was originally estimated to cost $93.7 million—yet it eventually grew to cost taxpayers over $2 billion.

Translation: The HealthCare.gov website pumped 2 billion growth dollars into the economy and cost taxpayers nothing. The Big Lie in economics is that federal taxes pay for federal spending. While state/local taxes pay for state/local government spending, federal taxes pay for nothing. They are destroyed upon receipt. All taxes are paid from checking accounts, the dollars which are part of the M2 money supply. Dollars paid to state/local governments are deposited into banks and remain in the M2 money supply. But tax dollars paid to the U.S. Treasury disappear from any money supply measure. There is no money supply measure of dollars held by the federal government. The reason: Unlike state/local governments, the federal government has infinite dollars. It is Monetarily Sovereign. It creates dollars at will.

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.”

Your federal tax dollars leave the M2 money supply and disappear into the infinity of the Federal government’s unlimited ability to create new dollars. That is how the federal government pays all its bills: By creating new dollars, ad hoc, not by using tax dollars.

Considering that the Biden administration already appears to be lowballing the cost of student loan forgiveness, estimating that federal student loan forgiveness will only cost $240 billion over the next decade, there is reason to worry that it is underestimating the cost of maintaining its application website as well.

Translation: There is reason to believe the program will pump even more than 240 billion growth dollars into the economy over the next decade.

This problem could have been avoided if student loan forgiveness had been enacted through the legislative process rather than by executive fiat. 

Translation: The growth dollars wouldn’t have been provided by a Senate hamstrung by Republicans, who hate giving money to anyone but the very rich. So Biden had to do it via executive fiat.

The staggering price the Biden administration places on upkeep for the student loan forgiveness application is yet more evidence of the true, bloated nature of the policy. It should come as no surprise that student loan forgiveness will be riddled with extra costs—costs that will no doubt be pushed onto taxpayers.

Translation: The cost of upkeep is more evidence of the actual benefits of the policy. Student loan forgiveness will provide additional growth spending that will cost taxpayers nothing but benefit college students and the entire economy. SUMMARY The federal government is Monetarily Sovereign. It uniquely has the unlimited ability to create U.S. dollars. Federal deficit spending is necessary to prevent and cure recessions and depressions. It costs federal taxpayers nothing. Federal taxes are destroyed upon receipt by the Treasury. To pay for goods and services, the federal government creates new dollars ad hoc. Federal deficit spending does not cause inflation, and if used to purchase and disseminate scarce goods and services, federal deficit spending can cure inflation. Reducing students’ loan costs not only helps the students and America’s educational competitiveness but stimulates the economy, Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY