“Wolf!” “The sky is falling” “Social Security and Medicare will be insolvent.”

Which of the following is a story with a false narrative: “The Boy Who Cried Wolf!” or “Henny Penny announcing, ‘The sky is falling,”or “The CRFB claiming, “Social Security and Medicare will be insolvent”?

Answer: All three are false narratives. The first two are meant to teach children valuable lessons. The third should teach adults a valuable lesson.

That lesson is: Don’t believe the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) when it howls like a wolf, squawks like a chicken, and pontificates in solemn terms that Social Security and Medicare “trust funds” are running short of dollars.

It’s all lies.

Here is what the CRFB now says:

Trustees: Social Security and Medicare Headed for Insolvency in 13 and 6 Years The Social Security and Medicare Trustees just released their 2022 reports on the financial status of the Social Security and Medicare programs.

The Trustees show that the Social Security and Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust funds rapidly approach insolvency. Their funding imbalances need to be addressed sooner rather than later to prevent across-the-board benefit cuts or abrupt changes to tax or benefit levels.

In effect, the CRFB claims:

1. Social Security and Medicare benefits are paid for by trust funds.

2. These “trust funds” will run short of money.

3. The solution to Medicare or Social Security insolvency requires cutting benefits and/or increasing taxes.

All three are factually FALSE.

1. SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE BENEFITS ARE PAID FOR BY TRUST FUNDS

Wrong.

To quote from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation website:

Federal trust funds bear little resemblance to their private-sector counterparts, and therefore the name can be misleading.

A private sector “trust fund” implies a secure source of funding.

(A federal trust fund merely tracks inflows and outflows for specific programs. There is no secure source of funding.)

In private-sector trust funds, receipts are deposited, and assets are held and invested by trustees on behalf of the stated beneficiaries.

In a federal trust fund, the receipts — as part of the M2 money supply measure — are destroyed upon receipt. They no longer are part of any money supply measure.

There are no stated beneficiaries, as the criteria for beneficiaries change daily.)

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.

The federal government (Congress and the President) can do whatever they wish with the “trust funds”: Add to them, subtract from them, or change them to pay for anything or nothing.

At the click of a computer key or the passage of a law, the balance in any federal “trust fund” could be changed to $100 trillion or $0 or anywhere in between.

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

If Congress and the President wished, the Medicare “trust fund” could be changed to pay for Las Vegas vacations, jewelry, Congressional vacations, etc. Almost every year, the federal government arbitrarily changes what Medicare will pay for and how much it will pay.

In fact, that is exactly what the CRFB suggests when it writes about “benefit cuts or abrupt changes to tax or benefit levels.”

In a real “trust fund,” the trustees would not have that control.

2. THESE TRUST FUNDS WILL RUN SHORT OF MONEY

Wrong.

The United States government is unlike state and local governments. It also is unlike euro governments, private businesses, you, and me. The U.S. government uniquely is Monetarily Sovereign. It is sovereign over the United States dollar.

In the 1780’s it created the original dollars from thin air and gave them an arbitrary value. Today, the government continues to create dollars from thin air and continues to provide them with an arbitrary value.

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 government never unintentionally can run short of its own sovereign currency, the dollar. Even if the federal government didn’t collect a penny in taxes, it could continue spending forever.

This absolute control over the U.S. dollar means no federal government agency can run out of dollars unless Congress and the President will it.

The only way Medicare or Social Security or any other federal agency can run short of dollars is if Congress and the President want them to run short of dollars.

3. THE SOLUTION TO SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE INSOLVENCY REQUIRES CUTTING BENEFITS OR INCREASING TAXES

Wrong.

Despite all the pretense about fake “trust funds,” Federal taxes (which include FICA) do not fund Medicare or Social Security. Those FICA dollars deducted from your paycheck (but tellingly, not deducted from other sources of income received by the wealthier among us) — those FICA dollars do not pay for anything.

They merely become part of the federal government’s infinite supply, and effectively are destroyed. (You mathematicians know that infinity plus any amount still = infinity. Thus, your tax dollars do not increase the federal government’s supply of dollars by even one cent.)

In fact, with regard to Medicare Part B, there is a wholly different pretense.

While Medicare Part A (pays for hospitals and doctors, Part B pays for clinical research, ambulance services, durable medical equipment, and some drugs. And Medicare recipients are charged extra, above FICA, ostensibly to pay for Part B.

But in reality, those charges, like all dollars coming into the federal government, are destroyed upon receipt.

The solution for Social Security and Medicare insolvencies is simply for the federal government to pay for them, which it could do the same way it pays for everything: By creating new dollars, ad hoc.

So group the warnings about Social Security and Medicare “trust fund” insolvency along with the boy who cried, “wolf” and Henny Penny’s “the sky is falling” as silly, little lies. There are no “trust funds.” Congress and the President have absolute control over all federal agency finances.

All your tax dollars are for naught. The federal government could and should provide free, comprehensive, no-deductible Social Security and Medicare for every man, woman, and child in America.

Continuing with the CRFB’s charade:

The Social Security Trustees estimate the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund will deplete its reserves by 2034 and the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) trust fund will not become depleted within the 75-year projection window for the first time since the 1983 Trustees’ report.

On a combined theoretical basis, assuming revenue is allocated between the trust funds in the years between OASI and SSDI insolvency, Social Security will become insolvent by 2035. Upon insolvency, all beneficiaries will face a 20 percent across-the-board benefit cut, which will grow to 26 percent by 2096.

The Trustees estimate a 75-year actuarial shortfall of 3.42 percent of taxable payroll for Social Security, which is slightly lower than the 2021 report’s estimate of 3.54 percent of payroll, but higher than any other year prior.

And blah, blah, blah. The CRFB substantiates the old saying, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure,” by providing statistics to make their lies sound factual.

Ooh, it must be true. There even is a graph. Except the graph is phony. The “Trust Fund Exhaustion” is based on the lie that Social Security benefits are paid by the fake “trust fund.” It’s not a trust fund and it pays for nothing. It’s just a record of ins and outs.

And here is another graph of lies:

Same story. The “Trust Fund Exhaustion” is based on a lie. The phony “trust fund” pays for nothing.

Why does the CRFB tell such big lies?

I suppose it’s possible they don’t know they are lying, and that they are providing the misinformation out of economic ignorance.

Actually, I don’t think so. My belief, based on no data, is that they know it’s a lie. If I am correct, why are they lying?

It all comes down to Gap Psychology, the human desire to distance ourselves from lower income/wealth/power people, while coming closer to the higher income/wealth/power people.

Rich is a comparative word, not an absolute. You only can be rich if someone else is poorer. Without the Gaps, no one would be rich. We all would be the same. So, to become richer, you need the Gap below you to widen and/or the Gap above you to narrow.

And that even includes the rich, who want to be richer, which they can accomplish by making the rest of us poorer.

Because the rich control the politicians, it is no coincidence that FICA is deducted from salaries rather than from the investment income that is the major part of the income received by the rich.

And there even is a cap on the income subject to FICA.

And then there are all the tax loopholes available to the rich — you know, those loopholes that made it possible for billionaire Donald Trump to avoid paying any taxes at all in 8 of the past 10 years. (How does it feel to know you’ve paid more taxes than a billionaire?)

Part of the plan by the rich, to widen the Gap below them, is to make you pay unnecessarily for Social Security and Medicare, and not only to pay more, but to have your benefits cut and taxed.

So the CRFB, as a paid mouthpiece for the rich, does everything it can to “prove” you should pay more taxes and receive less in benefits, thereby widening the Gap between you and the rich.

And they have been quite successful. Now that you have seen their phony statistics, here are some real statistics: Inequality is rising. The rich are growing richer; the poor are becoming poorer.

The Gini coefficient measures inequality, where “0” represents perfect equality (Everyone has the same) and “1” represents perfect inequality (where one person has everything). The higher the line, the more unequal the measure is.

And finally, of the two major political parties, one, the Republicans, tend to believe the poor are poor because they are dumb and lazy, while the rich are rich because they are smart and work hard. Here is one example of that belief:

IN SUMMARY

The U.S. federal government is Monetarily Sovereign. It never unintentionally can run short of its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar. Even if $0 federal taxes were collected, the federal government could continue spending forever.
Medicare and Social Security, as agencies of the U.S. government, cannot run short of dollars unless that is what Congress and the President want. The federal government funds all its agencies’ pending by creating new dollars, ad hoc. All tax income is destroyed upon receipt.
The Medicare and Social Security “trust funds” are not trust funds. These fake trust funds do not pay for benefits, but only keep records of dollar inflow and federal spending. As mere record keepers, they neither can be solvent nor become insolvent.
There is no financial reason to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits or to increase taxes, or even to continue collecting taxes. The federal government funds benefits paid by both programs regardless of tax income.
“Rich” is a comparative, not an absolute. According to Gap Psychology, people generally wish to widen the income/wealth/power Gaps below and to narrow those Gaps above. The rich can become richer by acquiring more for themselves and/or by forcing those below to acquire less.
The rich run America by bribing politicians, the media, and economists. To make themselves richer, the rich widen the Gap below by backing false narratives and laws that reduce federal benefits to the poorer while increasing taxes on the poorer.

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

……………………………………………………………………..

THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

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 Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps: Ten Steps To Prosperity:

The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

A tried-and-true solution to shootings. Are we smart enough to learn?

When it comes to shootings, mass or otherwise, America is an outlier among first-world nations.

The U.S. has 3.96 deaths from gun violence per 100,000 people in 2019. That was more than eight times as high as the rate in Canada, which had 0.47 deaths per 100,000 people — and nearly 100 times higher than in the United Kingdom, which had 0.04 deaths per 100,000.

The numbers come from a massive database maintained by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which tracks lives lost in every country, in every year, by every possible cause of death.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-7.png — **Source: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Credit: Connie Hanzhang Jin/NPR**

Here are some Republican ideas for stopping the slaughter

Arming teachers.

Limiting access to school buildings to a single locked door.

Expanding research into school violence.

Creating a federal task force to recommend how communities can make schools safe. Improving mental health care.

Republicans have offered up seemingly every potential solution to stop mass gun violence except restricting access to the weapons themselves.

Here’s a classic:

“What about getting a department that’s looking at young men that’s looking at women that’s looking at their social media?”

That brilliant comment came from the choice of Republican voters and Donald Trump to be a Senator from Georgia, Herschel Walker, in a Fox News interview.

Walker’s ex-wife said he had pointed a gun at her head, and “talked about having a shoot-out with police.” His own therapist said, “He threatened to kill her, myself, and himself. I called 911, and the police came.”

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick touted his state’s existing program that allows teachers to be armed, which did not prevent the massacre and called for more security around schools.

Republicans are open to legislation that would “harden” school buildings to make them more difficult to attack, although Democrats have criticized the idea of making campuses into jail-like fortresses.

YOUR CHILDREN’S SCHOOL IF GOVERNOR DAN PATRICK RULES

The Republican “sensible” solution for mass school shootings: “Hardened” school buildings with armed police surrounding every elementary school, high school, college, and university in America. But no gun control laws. And all the other public buildings in America –surround them with police, too?

Why is the United States so unusual in the number of gun-related deaths, and why are Republicans making such strange, impossible suggestions to “cure” the problem?

The answer, which every honest person knows, is quite obvious: America is unique. It has way too many guns and way too many people carrying them. That is the problem.

The symptom of that problem is too many gun deaths. Mass murders, individual murders, suicides, crimes involving guns, woundings — way too many.

Attempts to solve a problem by addressing a symptom cannot work. To solve a problem we must address the problem.

The politicians and their voters who claim that “guns don’t kill; people kill” are liars; they know they are liars, and they’ll keep lying until enough voters stand up to them.

Guns are meant for shooting. When masses of people carry guns, masses of people will be shot. Period.

The problem begins with the Supreme Court Justices who claimed the 2nd Amendment really says, “Any damn fool can have a gun of any kind, and wave it around like the damn fool he is” — well those Justice were liars too.

The first 13 words of the 2nd Amendment are: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State . . . The lying Justices, who claim they are “originalists” (people who obey how something would have been understood or was intended to be understood at the time it was written) — those right-wing Justices are damn liars, if they totally ignore those first 13 words.

Where is the Militia? Where is the “well-regulation”?

And then there’s, “. . . the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Historic Weapons, Lawrence Collection | Boston Athenæum — **If you truly are an originalist, this is what you mean by “arms.”**

As for the “arms,” are they swords and flintlock pistols? Are they automatic rifles? Are they hand grenades, flame throwers? Or are “arms” something like this:

Question for the Supreme Court: Should every American be allowed to own and carry AA12s? If not, why not? They are today’s “arms.”

Then there is the question of which “people”? Two-year-olds are people. Criminals are people. All those in jails and prisons are people? Aliens are people. Witnesses testifying in court are people. Should they all be allowed to pack guns? If not, why not?

Back in the 1700s, anyone of any age could carry a gun. Is that what the phony “originalists” now want in the 2000s?

Or should we merely wait for the next shooting, then offer our “thoughts and prayers”?

If so, you don’t have long to wait. Mass shootings in the United States are far more common than you have imagined:

U.S. marks Memorial Day weekend with at least 12 mass shootings

Since the Uvalde, Tex., elementary school tragedy, there have been at least 15 other shootings that had at least four victims By Annabelle Timsit Updated May 31, 2022

But mass shootings have already happened again — and again. At least 15 mass shootings have taken place across the United States since Tuesday, from California to Arizona to Tennessee.

This Memorial Day weekend alone — spanning Saturday, Sunday and the federal holiday on Monday — there have been at least 12 mass shootings.

The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research organization, defines a mass shooting as one in which “four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter.”

So is the situation hopeless? Are we doomed to keep repeating the same mistake over and over again? Will children and adults keep dying, because we are not smart enough to make necessary changes?

Will we continue to insist that everyone should have the right to own and carry a killing machine, while we simultaneously pray the killing and wounding will stop?

Are we really that stupid?

Do we sincerely want a solution?

What can Australia teach us about guns and gun control?

A (mass gun) massacre rocked Australia.

So, the then-prime minister, a conservative politician and close friend of George W. Bush, pushed through sweeping gun control legislation just 12 days after the shooting.

“The hardest things to do in politics often involve taking away rights and privileges from your own supporters,” Howard said.

The tough new laws banned the sale and importation of all automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns; forced people to present a legitimate reason, and wait 28 days, to buy a firearm; and – perhaps most significantly – called for a massive, mandatory gun-buyback.

Australia’s government confiscated and destroyed nearly 700,000 firearms, reducing the number of gun-owning households by half.

Howard told Doane, “People used to say to me, ‘You violated my human rights by taking away my gun.’ And I’d tell them, ‘I understand that. Will you please understand the argument, the greatest human right of all is to live a safe life without fear of random murder?'”

If we tally mass shootings that have killed four or more people, in the United States there have been well over 100 since the 1996 Port Arthur tragedy. But in Australia, there has been just one in the 26 years since their gun laws were passed. Plus, gun homicides have decreased by 60%.

Perhaps, Australians simply are smarter than we are.

Or is it just that their High Court is smarter and more honest than our Supreme Court?

Or is it that Australian media don’t include a “guns-for-everyone” medium like Fox News. (Murdoch’s news channel in Australia has celebrated the country’s gun control laws — and expressed hope that the U.S. would adopt similar ones.)

Or do Australians care more about life than we do?

The problem: America has more guns per capita than any first-world nation on earth.

The symptom: America has more gun-related deaths, woundings, and crimes than any first-world nation on earth.

To cure the symptom, we must cure the problem. Australia has shown us one way to begin.

Are we too stubborn or simply too stupid to learn?

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

……………………………………………………………………..

THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Why are Republicans so mean?

This is not a random accusation. It’s a sincere question that has troubled me for several years. It actually is a two-part question:

Are Republicans mean?
If so, why?

1. ARE REPUBLICANS MEAN?

Given the key problems of the day, Republicans seem to settle on the meanest possible solution.

GUNS: Another day, another mass gun murder.

More guns = more gun deaths.

There are more guns in the United States than there are people — over 393 million firearms in the United States, and this number only includes civilian-owned firearms, meaning it doesn’t count firearms in possession by the military, government agencies, or by law enforcement.

That number means that there are enough guns for every single person in the United States (including men, women and children) to own one, with 67 million guns left over.

That number is incredibly high, especially when you consider that only four in ten adults say they live in a home with a gun.

The United States has the most civilian owned firearms than any other country in the world at 120.5 per 100 people, with Yemen, a country that has been in a bloody civil war for several years, coming in a far second at 52.8 guns per 100 people.

What is the Republican solution to gun killings? More guns. Arm everyone. Armed guards in every school, (despite the fact there already was an armed guard in the Texas school).

“We can’t stop bad people from doing bad things,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.

“We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly. That, in my opinion, is the best answer.”

Such a program already exists, to an extent: the Texas School Marshals Program, which was created in the wake of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

That program allows teachers and administrators to act as “school marshals,” entitled to carry firearms after completing 80 hours of a training course conducted by a law enforcement academy.

(Reuters reports that the Texas State Teachers Association has opposed the program, arguing that the focus should be on taking guns out of schools.)

In fact, the armed guard at the Texas school did nothing. Armed police were in the school for an hour an armed man finally killed the murderer.

That’s a total of an hour and twenty minutes that fully armed people did nothing.

From the Chicago Tribune: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. tried to nudge Republicans into taking up a domestic terrorism bill that had cleared the House quickly last week after mass shootings at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, and a church in Southern California targeting people of color.

He said it could become the basis for negotiation.

But the vote failed along party lines, raising fresh doubts about the possibility of robust debate, let alone eventual compromise, on gun safety measures.

The final vote was 47-47, short of the 60 needed to take up the bill. All Republicans voted against it.

And then there are the military-style solutions:

During Fox News’s coverage Tuesday night of America’s most recent mass shooting, it was apparently too soon to discuss gun reform—but the right time to propose that schools be equipped with booby traps, armed military contractors, and bulletproof blankets.

Sean Hannity urged the U.S. government to hire military and police contractors to patrol schools.

“[Place] retired military, retired law enforcement outside the perimeter of every school in the country, they can donate their time, we can offer them tax breaks, no income tax in the state, no income tax federally, 10 hours a week, and we can have every school in America covered,”

Another solution pitched on the network came via Maureen O’Connell, a former FBI agent, who suggested that the onus is on parents to invest in bulletproof armor for their children.

Colion Noir, a gun-culture social media influencer, said on Fox News that American schools should be “so hardened”––i.e., heavily defended and inaccessible to the public.

If you think the above “solutions” are crazy, that’s only because you are not a right-wing viewer of Fox News, the home of the Republican, Trumpian gun-nut clan.

Reducing the number of guns and the number of people carrying guns is unthinkable to Republicans, who always choose the most confrontational, warlike, aggressive, mean-spirited approach to any problem.

RELIGION: If you believe religion is about morality and the Golden Rule, you would be wrong with regard to the Republican party, or at least to its political efforts.

For the party (if not individuals), religion is about Christianity über alles. Other religions need not apply.

GOP pols Robinson, Walker, and Cawthorn align themselves with a movement seeking to end the separation of church and state.

A particular theme to which all three men have returned is that of persecuted Christianity and the need to institute religious teaching and principles into all areas of civic life, particularly public schools, which they say should be reformed according to their religious principles or abandoned by Christian families.

The American Renewal Project was launched by founder David Lane in the 2013-2014 election cycle. Its goal, as stated by Lane, is to “engage the church in a culture war for religious liberty, to restore America to our Judeo-Christian heritage and to re-establish a Christian culture.”

Robinson stated that the United States is and has always been a “Christian nation” and invited those who disagree with that premise to leave the country.

Mark Levin, a talk radio personality who hosts a weekend Fox News program, suggested that bringing “Judeo-Christian principles” and prayer into schools could help stop future mass shootings.

There is nothing wrong with someone having religious beliefs, but when those beliefs claim ownership of America, the eviction of non-Christians, and the establishment of a harsh theocracy, democracy is doomed.

ABORTION: The Republican solution favors punishment for women and children, vs. embryos and fetuses, even those embryos that clearly are not yet sentient.

Many Republicans favor no abortion at any stage, and some want to eliminate any form of birth control, like condums and IUDs, even when no embryo has yet formed. They choose a sperm over a human.

I won’t go through all the “side” effects of abortion banning, the inevitable deaths of mothers, the ongoing misery for financially, emotionally, or mentally unfit mothers birthing unwanted, unaffordable, and/or disabled children.

I merely argue that banning abortions, particularly in the first few weeks of pregnancy, is the meanest possible approach to the question of abortion.

**Unauthorized immigrants removed or returned**

IMMIGRATION: America is a gigantic nation, in area, population, and in resources.

As of March, 2022, we had 332,812,000 people living here, of whom about 12 million (3.6%) are undocumented.

In 2020, we removed or returned 406,000 immigrants, or about one-tenth of one percent of our population.

Had we accepted every single one of them, our population would have “soared” from 332,812,000 to 333,218,000. This would not have made a noticeable difference in any anti-immigration factor.

Why are they removed or returned? Mostly it’s because they are illegal according to current law, and our method for processing them is so inefficient and antiquated, they have little hope of becoming legal (except if you are rich, in which case there is no problem at all).

All of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants (Yes, even you indigenous folks. Your ancestors came here from other lands). Yet, there is now the false claim that rather than being an asset to America, immigrants take, but don’t contribute.

An article published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis describes the many ways in which immigrants are a net benefit to working America.

They do not take jobs away from native-born Americans; they do not fill the rolls for public assistance; they are less likely to engage in criminal behavior than are the native-born, and they do pay taxes.

While both political parties suffer from an anti-immigrant delusion to some degree, the Republicans are more ruthless in their interpretation and utilization of immigration law.

They even want to send back the 650,000 “Dreamers,” who are among our very best people.

The Trump administration announced in September 2017 that it planned to scrap the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program created by the Obama administration to give temporary, renewable protections to these young people, nicknamed Dreamers.

Trump’s decision immediately threw Dreamers into turmoil and fear, while also triggering a legal battle that wound up in the supreme court last year and led to this June 2020 decision.

The program has been in limbo since the 2017 announcement.

HEALTH CARE: The right-wing is notorious for its attitude toward the not-rich. They wanted to eliminate the very popular ACA (Obamacare).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a new report that shows 31 million Americans have health coverage through the Affordable Care Act – a record.

The report also shows that there have been reductions in uninsurance rates in every state in the country since the law’s coverage expansions took effect.

Today’s report shows the important role the ACA has played in providing coverage to millions of Americans nationwide.

The report also shows that between 2010 and 2016, the number of nonelderly uninsured adults decreased by 41 percent, falling from 48.2 million to 28.2 million.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia have experienced reductions in their uninsured rates since the implementation of the ACA, with states that expanded Medicaid experiencing the largest reduction in their uninsured rate.

To date, 37 states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid to cover adults under the ACA.

Sadly, 12 Holdout States Haven’t Expanded Medicaid, Leaving 2 Million People In Limbo

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin. Guess which party they vote for.

There are more than 2 million people across the United States who have no option when it comes to health insurance.

They don’t qualify for Medicaid in their state, and make too little money to be eligible for subsidized health plans on the Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges.

Essentially, the federal government will cover 90% of the costs of the newly eligible population, and an additional 5% of the costs of those already enrolled. It’s a good financial deal.

An analysis by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the net benefit for these states would be $9.6 billion.

The reluctance among some Republican-led legislatures and governors to expand Medicaid may be a combination of partisan resistance to President Obama’s signature health law, and not believing “this kind of government intervention for these groups of people is appropriate.”

It’s not a financial decision by these Republican states. They do it out of meanness and a lack of concern for those who are not rich.

**https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/02/why-people-are-rich-and-poor-republicans-and-democrats-have-very-different-views/**

POVERTY: Republicans tend to blame the poor for being poor, and claim the poor are lazy, need to lift themselves by their bootstraps, and should not rely on help from the government.

Thus, Republicans slash programs that benefit the poor, despite the fact that:

Republican districts have more poor residents overall:

The Republican House Committee on the Budget reported a budget resolution for 2017 calling for trillions of dollars in cuts to programs serving vulnerable populations.

Major cuts affecting low-income individuals include:

$2 trillion from Medicaid – up to $1 trillion from cutting the base program plus another $1 trillion from repealing the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion;
$887 billion from already-low non-defense discretionary funding levels, putting a broad array of programs serving low-income populations such as housing assistance, WIC, job training, and others at risk of deep funding cuts; $185 billion from federal college aid for low-income students;
$157 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program;
and $0.6 trillion from other income security programs, a category where most spending is for safety-net programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, child nutrition, Supplemental Security Income for the aged and disabled, Unemployment Insurance, refundable tax credits for low-income workers, and child care.net programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, child nutrition, Supplemental Security Income for the aged and disabled, Unemployment Insurance, refundable tax credits for low-income workers, and child care.

CRIME: Republicans oppose street crime (which is more often committed by poor people) than white-collar crime.

For street crime, Republicans favor harsh punishment after the fact as a future deterrent vs. prevention of the causes of street crime (poverty, poor education, poor housing, poor opportunities).

Republicans believe in more stringent sentencing laws for felons, support a database for convicted child murderers, support courts having the right to use the death penalty, and believe in stronger victim rights and harsher punishments for certain, especially heinous crimes.

They view stricter punishment as a deterrent to future crime, and believe this is the best way to address crime and criminals in today’s society.

They oppose prison reforms proposed by the Democratic Party that would see better higher education options and more comfortable accommodations in prisons.

IN SUMMARY, Republicans choose the most mean-spirited “solutions” to problems involving Guns, Abortion, Immigration, Health Care, Poverty, Religion, and Crime.

2. WHY DO REPUBLICANS CHOOSE THE MEANER SOLUTIONS?

The excuse often given is money, especially with regard to Immigration and Health Care.

But this excuse is belied by the fact that 12 states would have received an additional $9.6 billion from the federal government, had they accepted the expansion of Medicare.

Further, there is zero evidence that immigrants are a financial burden on America. On the contrary, they are the basis upon which America was built.

With regard to Guns, the excuse is that there is a Constitutional right for a citizen to carry a gun. But this is a manufactured excuse created by the intentional misreading of the 2nd Amendment.

Right-wingers argue that the first thirteen words of the 2nd Amendment — “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” — are absolutely meaningless, the first and only time that self-proclaimed “originalists” have made such an extraordinary effort to ignore plain language in the Constitution.

More than money, the meanness of the right-wing has to do with power. Gap Psychology describes how people often wish to narrow the income/wealth/power Gap above us, and to widen the Gap below us.

Income is “high” or “low,” not in absolute, but in relative terms. An income of $20,000 a year is high if everyone else is making $2,000, but it is low if everyone else is making $200,000. Wealth and power are similarly subject to relativism.

Because hatred, anger, and meanness are childen of fear (See: Fear and hatred, the evil twins of human emotion) it is the fear of losing ground, especially to those “below,” that leads to hatred and its final expression: Meanness.

The “great replacement” is a conspiracy theory that states that nonwhite individuals are being brought into the United States and other Western countries to “replace” white voters to achieve a political agenda.

A white supremacist “Unite the White” demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va. Some marchers chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”

White supremacists argue that the influx of immigrants, people of color more specifically, will lead to the extinction of the white race.

The alleged supermarket shooter and other extremists claim the U.S. has to close its borders to immigrants.

The “great replacement” theory is sometimes seen in other ways such as claims of voter replacement and immigrants invading America.

The claim assumes that immigrants and nonwhite people will vote a certain way, ultimately drowning out the votes of white Americans.

White supremacists blame Jewish people for nonwhite immigration to the U.S., and the “replacement” theory is now associated with antisemitism.

President Donald Trump, the most powerful Republican leader in decades, condemned both neo-Nazis and white nationalists.

But, his first statement and subsequent defenses of it, referred to “very fine people on both sides.” implying a moral equivalence between white supremacists and those who opposed them.

Trump also referred to African countries, Haiti, and El Salvador as “shithole” nations and he asked why the U.S. can’t have more immigrants from (white) Norway.

Republicans are motivated by a GOP stoked-from-above fear that the Gap below them will narrow. They are afraid that immigrants will take their jobs, and that Jews will outcompete them. They are afraid of women making decisions.

The conservative men compare their own masculinity with that of black men, and find themselves wanting, which is why they idolize the hyper (though phony) masculinity of a Donald Trump, and fear gays.

Their fear manifests itself in the need to have, carry and even display the protection of guns, the bigger and more powerful, the better.

Republicans are “conservatives” whose fears demand that they protect themselves by conserving a mythical old moral order.

Sadly, the mythical old order that Republicans fondly embrace in their imaginations includes xenophobia, slavery, misogyny, hopes for a Christian theocracy, fear and loathing of the poor, and bigotry against non-whites, gays, Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians.

In short, they fear being replaced.

Democrats are progressives, meaning they wish to progress beyond such archaic beliefs. No, they are not pure. They have their own selfish desires. But they don’t fear the future the way conservatives do.

That is why conservatives are anti-science. Science brings the changes conservatives fear.

In clinging to a mythical past, the conservatives also reject past realities to the point where they fear schools even discussing critical race theory (housing segregation, the impacts of criminal justice policy, and the legacy of slavery on all Americans).

They also dread teaching “Social and Emotional Learning“ (ethically managing one’s emotions, empathy for diverse groups, etc.) for fear that this lifts minority groups to parity with white Christians.

If you want to understand what motivates Trump worship, QAnon belief, Fox News viewership, white supremacy, gun hugging, extreme religiosity, harsh treatment of immigrants, criminals, and the poor, religious bigotry, attempts at a coup, and all the other craziness of today’s right-wing, the answer can be found in one word: FEAR.

These people exhibit all the symptoms of group terror. In various ways, the fear of being replaced is fundamental to the meanness and bigotry that has become more widespread in America.

Perhaps the only way to solve the problem is not to reason with Trumpist Republicans, which undoubtedly you have found doesn’t work, but rather to reassure them.

And the best way to do that is to maintain the Gaps in the lower strata.

This may seem like heresy, but I am coming to the belief that Gap Psychology — the part about not wanting the Gaps below you to be narrowed — is so baked in to the human psyche, that no amount of well-meaning, logical argument will overcome it.

While we should narrow the Gaps near the top where the billionaires currently reside, our efforts should be to lift the bottom and middle as one unit.

Examples: COVID vaccinations are available free to everyone, regardless of income. A Medicare for All program should cover everyone equally, regardless of income. So should Social Security for All.

So should federal financial food assistance, including Free School Meals for ALL Children (just as school vaccinations are free to everyone) and Food stamp programs.

These federal benefits should be available to all children, regardless of income.

All federal government program benefits should be available, regardless of income.

There can be any number of criteria for receiving federal benefits, but income should not be one of them.

This will help allay the “replacement” fear that is the basis for inter-group hatred and meanness.

And by the way, not only can the federal government easily afford it, but income-unrelated benefits will grow the economy for all Americans.

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

……………………………………………………………………..

THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

“First do no harm.” How “Dr.” Jerome Powell will worsen the inflation and cause a recession

**“Dr.” Jerome Powell: I am going to cure your anemia by applying leeches to drain your blood.**

A medical doctor will tell you, if you want to prevent and/or cure a disease, it helps to understand and address the cause(s) of the disease. But first, do no harm.

And to identify and determine the cause of the disease, look at the symptoms. Today’s economy is diseased, and the symptom is inflation, which can precede a recession.

Inflation is a general increase in prices.

Every price increase can be attributed to scarcity. Barring government interference (i.e,. price controls, taxes, etc.) market prices do not rise on any product when there is a surfeit of that product.

“Dr. Powell’s treatment for inflation are:

Raise interest rates
Reduce money growth.

And he wishes to do this without causing a recession .

Today’s inflation is caused by multiple scarcities: energy, food, supply chain, fertilizer, computer chips, lumber, baby formula, rare earth elements, labor, etc., etc.

Powell believes that the inflation is caused by the federal government’s massive spending to prevent a COVID recession. In that regard, the spending worked.

**Because of massive federal spending, COVID was able to cause only the briefest possible recession: Two quarters.**

COVID killed almost 1 million Americans and hospitalized many millions more. Yet the federal government was able to limit the drop in GDP to just two quarters. The 4th quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020.

This was an amazing feat, and will be remembered as a great financial success for the government..

Why did federal spending limit what otherwise would have been a long, harsh depression? You might remember that the Great Depression ended in 1941, the same year we entered World War II.

That was not a coincidence. Recessions and depressions are symptoms of shortages, and most shortages are symptoms of a lack of money.

Look again at the partial list of today’s shortages, and see what the causes are:

Energy: Lack of federal money spent on oil drilling and refining, exacerbated by the lack of money spent on the development of alternative energy sources (wind, nuclear, hydro, geothermal, solar. )
America has vast deserts and other areas that receive plentiful sunshine, perfect for solar energy.
Food: Lack of federal money spent to resolve supply chain issues, labor issues, factory issues, workers’ inability to travel to jobs, fertilizer costs, import restrictions. (See: 5 Reasons Why a Global Food Shortage is Becoming a Real Concern)
Fertilizer and many other products: A big culprit is lack of money to create a safe, viable supply chain. Our current ports, truck lines and other segments of the supply chain all are at the minimum level required for normal times, with no backup. This always was an existential risk for the U.S. economy,
The Midwest and shore areas of America are good locations for wind energy.
and now COVID has disrupted the entire length of the chain. To protect America, the government should help strengthen the chain.
Computer chips: Most are produced in foreign nations. This is too vital a product to rely on foreign production. The federal government should provide money incentives for domestic production to safeguard our economy.
Labor: People won’t work for low salaries. Federal spending FICA and providing Medicare for All would give businesses financial room to raise salaries. Additional tax incentives for salaries would encourage businesses to raise pay.

None of the above problems will be addressed by “Dr. Powell’s” prescription of interest rate increases or by federal spending decreases. He is applying leeches to cure anemia.

Chairman Powell thinks the problem is too much money in the economy, when exactly the opposite is true. Too little money is available to cure the shortages that are the real cause of inflation.

The economy is not “overheated,” as Powell claims. Despite trillions having been spent, the current problem is lack of continued spending.

When COVID hit us, the federal government’s spending was good economic medicine that addressed the symptoms and prevented a deep recession, but the underlying shortage “diseases” remain.

Powell wants to discontinue the medicine because he wrongly believes, despite ample evidence, that federal spending causes inflation and recession.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-3.png — The blue line shows changes in federal deficit spending. Diagonal lines show reduced deficit trends leading to recessions. The vertical gray bars are the recessions caused by reduced deficit growth — exactly what Powell wants to do.

The trend lines show that recessions begin after periods of reduced federal deficit growth. Recessions are cured by increased federal deficit growth.

**Inflation (red) vs. federal deficit spending (blue). Data do not indicate that federal deficit spending causes inflation**.

Federal deficit spending does not cause inflations or recessions. The opposite is true. The lack of federal spending causes inflations and recessions.

In Summary, Chairman Powell figuratively is applying leeches to cure anemia. He is doing exactly the wrong things to cure inflation and to prevent recessions.

Increasing interest rates will not cure the problem that actually causes inflation: Shortages of key products and services. Nor will cuts to federal deficits prevent a recession.

The Fed cannot do what it was not designed to do. Congress, not the Fed, can and must act to cure the shortages that cause inflation.

Democrats beware: Powell’s policies will worsen the inflation and cause a deep recession, and unless Congress acts to cure the shortages, we will have a depression.

And Democrats will receive the blame.

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[No rational person would take dollars from the economy and give them to a federal government that has the infinite ability to create dollars.]

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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