Send the government a multitrillion-dollar invoice at 10:00 AM, and it could pay it by 10:01 AM simply by pressing a few computer keys.
And no, it wouldn’t affect federal taxpayers, because federal taxes don’t support federal spending. All federal tax dollars disappear upon receipt at the Treasury. All federal spending is paid for by the creation of new dollars.
That’s one of the differences between federal vs. state/local government finances. State/regional taxes do fund state/local spending.
Further, paying that trillion dollars wouldn’t cause inflation. Only shortages, not federal spending, cause inflation. See “The inflation myths debunked. It’s never ‘money-printing.’ It’s always shortages,” and “At long last, let’s put this inflation question to bed.”
To prevent inflation, prevent shortages. To cure inflation, cure the shortages. It is that straightforward.
Keep those basic facts in mind as you read the following articles:
Senate Republicans plan to vote on a health care alternative as ACA funds look likely to expire The Senate will vote this week on a GOP bill to put money in health savings accounts, as well as a Democratic bill to extend the expiring ACA subsidies. Both are expected to fail.
December 9, 2025, 4:46 PM EST By Sahil Kapur, Brennan Leach, Ryan Nobles and Frank Thorp V WASHINGTON — As the U.S. careens to a health care cliff, Senate Republicans say they’ll offer a bill written by two key committee chairs as an alternative to extending billions of dollars in Affordable Care Act funds that are expiring this month.
A “health care cliff” would be a dramatic decrease in the availability of health care. The Republicans will do nothing to prevent it. On the contrary, all their efforts are directed toward reducing health care in America.Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the Senate will vote on a bill by Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Senate HELP Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., “side-by-side” to Democratic legislation that would extend the enhanced ACA funds for three years, preventing sharp premium increases.
He stopped short of promising that all 53 Republicans would back the Republican bill, but it is almost sure to fail either way, as it would take 60 votes to advance.
“Our members — and I can’t say 100%, but I think for the most part, I would argue — are united behind the Crapo-Cassidy proposal,” Thune told reporters Tuesday after a Senate Republican lunch meeting where they discussed what to do.
Thune said the bill “is about patients, not insurance companies; and about lowering premiums, not increasing them, and about getting a better return for the federal taxpayer.”
Note the great struggle the Senate is going through, because “it’s about patients, not insurance companies” (lie #1), “it’s about lowering premiums, not increasing them” (lie #2), and “getting a better return for the federal taxpayer” (lie #3).
If the Senate really wanted to help patients, lower premiums, and get a better return for the federal taxpayer (whatever that means), there is an easy way to do it: Fully fund a comprehensive, no-deductible Medicare plan covering every American of all ages, regardless of health.
This would “help patients” (everyone would be protected). It would “lower premiums (premiums would be $0). And it would be a better return for the federal taxpayer (no tax dollars would be used).
It would do everything Thune claims he wants, and he knows it. So why does he lie? Because he is paid to lie, and because you buy his lies.
The Crapo-Cassidy bill would allow the ACA tax credits to expire and instead approve new funds to boost health savings accounts, or HSAs, which Americans up to 700% of the poverty level can use to buy “bronze” or “catastrophic” plans, the lowest tiers of insurance available under the ACA.
It would also create the option for more people to buy cheaper, less comprehensive plans. And it would fund cost-sharing reduction payments.
The irony of a crapo plan being put forward by a politician named “Crapo” would make for a hilarious John Candy movie if it were not precisely what is happening.
The program calls for “bronze” or “catastrophic” plans.
Under a typical Bronze plan, you’d pay most costs until you hit about $7,500 in covered expenses; after that, you still share costs; and if you end up needing a lot of care in a year, the most you’d pay (including $6,000 in premiums) is about $15,200 (for an individual).
With a Catastrophic plan, you’re responsible for almost all costs (except limited preventive + a few PCP visits) until you’ve spent about $10,600 in a year, after which the plan pays 100% for covered care. Because of this high deductible, Catastrophic plans are often only sensible if you expect very low care needs (or rare, serious emergencies).
If you pick a Catastrophic plan, figure around $4,500 a year in premiums.
And it is all unnecessary. The federal government could and should pay 100%, you should pay 0%, and not one penny of your tax dollars would be used. But the politicians don’t want you to understand that.
Eligible adults under 50 would receive $1,000 per year deposited into an HSA, and those 50 to 64 would receive $1,500. The legislation blocks the use of the money for abortion or “gender transition procedures.”
Because, to a Republican, gay people are an abomination with no right to health care.
Democrats and some health care policy experts say that is nowhere near enough. If Congress allows the ACA subsidies to expire at the end of this year, premiums will, on average, double for more than 20 million Americans who use them.
Sabrina Corlette, a Georgetown professor who specializes in health care policy, said the Republican bill amounts to “offering people a 1-foot rope to get out of a 10-foot hole.”
“The average deductible for a bronze plan is $7,500, double that for a family plan,” she said. “The HSA contribution doesn’t extend to kids under 18 and is only $1,000 for an adult under 50. There’s no adjustment for income, meaning this proposal wildly favors wealthier — and healthier — enrollees.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., slammed the Republican bill as a “phony proposal” and a “nonstarter” that is “dead on arrival” in the chamber.
He said the Crapo-Cassidy bill promotes “junk insurance” and would raise costs for those who need health care.
“It is junk insurance that puts the burden on people. We should call it what it is: misdirection, smoke and mirrors to cover up blocking the ACA tax credits that keep health care costs down,” Schumer told reporters. “Our bill keeps premiums down. Their chaos sends premiums up.”
The primary reason the Republicans propose their plan is to cut benefits for the poor and middle-income people—benefits that the government could easily afford at no cost to taxpayers.Schumer has said all 47 Democratic caucus members will support his bill to extend the existing ACA premium tax credits for three years when it comes up on Thursday.
In the House, every Democrat has signed a “discharge petition” to force a vote on the same bill; it would need the support of a majority of the House, meaning at least a few Republicans, to bring the bill to the floor.
Though the Democrats’ bill is more generous than the Republicans’, it still rests on the misconception that federal spending is constrained by the amount of federal taxes collected. In reality, federal taxes do not fund spending; all federal expenditures are made possible by the creation of new dollars.
Schumer added that stricter abortion restrictions, as GOP lawmakers have demanded as part of any deal, are “off the table.” He said Republicans are doing it because they’re “afraid” of the anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America and don’t “care about reducing health care costs.”
The Senate alternative comes as many Republicans — especially those facing re-election next year — are scrambling to get behind some kind of plan to address sharp premium hikes that are scheduled to kick in next month for millions of Americans. House GOP leaders have not endorsed a health care alternative.
Unnecessary “premium hikes.”“I just don’t know how Republicans would explain that to 24 million Americans whose premiums are going to double,” Hawley said. “People at home are going to say, ‘You are hurting me. You’re making my premiums go up. You’re not helping me. Why are you doing that to me?”
And Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he heard from a constituent who’s “currently paying $800 a month for health insurance, for a couple and three children.”
“They just communicated to me, it’s going to be twice, going to be $1,600 a month. If we’ve got a lot of those out there, that’s a problem for us,” said Tillis, who is retiring. “Look, the Democrats created the problem. We’ve got to solve it, or going into next year, we will own a problem that they created.”
The “problem” is the Big Lie that federal finances are like personal finances, and so, must be limited.
Republicans have offered a potpourri of other proposals to ease the pain. Some are merely frameworks. Others have been written out into legislative text. Some provide a temporary extension of the money, with strings attached, like narrowing income thresholds for eligibility, requiring a minimum premium payment and slapping new abortion restrictions.
But none of the Republican plans to prevent ACA funds from expiring have a consensus in the party, as many GOP lawmakers in both chambers want the money to expire on schedule.
And there you have it. The Republican Party (aka “The Party of the Rich”) really doesn’t want you to receive any financial help for health care. In fact, it wants to cut all benefits for those who are not wealthy.
Benefits to the rich, like tax loopholes that cost the government trillions, are OK, however.
“Giving billions of taxpayer dollars to insurers is not working to reduce health insurance premiums for patients,” Crapo said. “We need to give Americans more control over their own health care decisions. This bill builds on the work we did in the Working Families Tax Cuts Act and will help Americans manage the rising cost of health care without driving costs even higher.”
In promoting his crapo plans, Crapo really is saying, “We need to give Americans more responsibility for paying their healthcare costs.”And by the way, there is no legislation called “Working Families Tax Cuts Act.” It’s all a Republican hocus pocus. It doesn’t exist.
Larry Levitt, a health policy expert with the research group KFF, highlighted the “tradeoffs” in the GOP proposal, saying it would benefit healthier people while raising costs on sicker people.
What a great idea: A Republican healthcare plan that primarily benefits healthy people and hurts sick people. What next — a TV that only works when no one is in the room? A car that only drives when you want to stay home?“ACA enrollees who are sick would be stuck with big out-of-pocket premium increases or have to switch to a plan with a deductible of over $7,000. People with substantial health needs would blow through their modest health savings accounts and face high, out-of-pocket costs.”
“The Republican plan would not avoid ACA enrollees seeing their out-of-pocket premiums doubling next year,” Levitt added.
As many members of Congress have acknowledged, the premium hikes are likely to go into effect. Both the Democratic and Republican bills are expected to fail this week on the Senate floor, where they’ll need 60 votes to advance.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he has little interest in extending money under the ACA, calling it “a program that’s just never going to produce quality results.”
“I’d like to make drugs more affordable,” he said. “So how do you do that? You change the system that makes them too high.”
Lindsey doesn’t like ACA, but wants to make drugs more affordable. Of course, he has no plan for that, because it would help poor and middle-income people.==========================================
All politicians, particularly Republicans (though Democrats share some responsibility as well), promote the false narrative that the federal government cannot afford to provide benefits to citizens because the costs supposedly burden taxpayers. The media and university economists are also complicit in this deception, as they, too, have been influenced by wealthy interests.
Here’s another example of the Big Lie:
Trump administration announces deal to end key Biden-era student loan repayment program The Education Department said it had reached a proposed settlement with Missouri that would end Biden’s “Saving on a Valuable Education,” or SAVE, plan.
“For four years, the Biden Administration sought to unlawfully shift student loan debt onto American taxpayers, many of whom either never took out a loan to finance their postsecondary education or never even went to college themselves, simply for a political win to prop up a failing Administration.”
Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent made a statement on Tuesday. “The Trump Administration is righting this wrong and bringing an end to this deceptive scheme. The law is clear: if you take out a loan, you must pay it back.”
American taxpayers pay taxes, but their tax dollars pay for nothing. The federal government pays all its bills with newly minted dollars.When people “pay it back” to the government, it does not benefit either taxpayers or the government. Instead, it removes money from the economy and transfers it to the federal government, where it effectively disappears. See: “Does the U.S. Treasury Really Destroy Your Tax Dollars?”
Thus, forcing student borrowers to repay federal loans has no good purpose and two bad results:
- It discourages Americans from going to college, contributing to the dumbing down of America.
- It removes growth dollars from the economy, reducing economic growth. It’s recessionary.
Two bad results; no good results. What a concept! And it’s all based on the Big Lie in economics.
WHY THE LIE?
“Rich” is a relative term. You would be considered rich with a million dollars if everyone else had only a thousand. However, you would be seen as poor if everyone else had ten million.
So, there are two ways for you to get richer:
- Obtain more for yourself and/or
- Make sure everyone else has less.
The very rich, who always wish to be richer, use both systems:
They get more for themselves by bribing politicians to create tax laws favoring the rich– all those tax loopholes and programs you don’t even know about, much less use.
It’s interesting to see how the tax system is structured! Higher tax rates apply to salaries, while capital gains are subject to much lower, sometimes even zero, rates. Wealthy individuals also benefit as their corporations often cover many expenses, leading to further deductions.
This setup is designed to help the wealthy widen the income/wealth/power Gap between them and those below them. They make sure everyone else has less by opposing benefits for the poor and middle classes and even taxing some of those benefits.
To make you believe the Lie and accept the unfairness, they promulgate it via the information providers:
- They bribe politicians with campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment.
- They bribe the media with advertising dollars and outright ownership
- They bribe economists with university endowments and promises of lucrative jobs at “think tanks.”
They are so effective at manipulating perceptions that the vast majority of Americans do not realize they are being deceived. As a result, you and your friends may accept misleading claims, such as the belief that taxpayers fund federal spending, that the wealthy pay higher tax rates, and that federal spending equates to socialism.
These are all lies. When was the last time you voiced your concerns to your Senator or Representative?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Twitter: @rodgermitchell
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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.
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