Tag: Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

–Can you be forced to buy insurance?

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand Monetary Sovereignty, do not understand economics. Cutting the federal deficit is the most ignorant and damaging step the federal government could take. It ranks ahead of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
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Washington (CNN) — A federal judge in Florida has ruled unconstitutional the sweeping health care reform law championed by President Barack Obama, setting up what is likely to be a contentious Supreme Court challenge over the legislation in coming months.
Monday’s sweeping ruling came in the most closely watched of the two dozen separate challenges to the law. Florida, along with 25 other states, filed a lawsuit last spring seeking to dismiss a law critics labeled “Obamacare.”

Message to Republicans: Be careful what you wish for. Despite what the Tea Party and the polls may tell you, voters probably will not like having their benefits taken from them. And if this ruling is upheld, it opens the door to a single payer system, which you supposedly hate.

The issue was whether the government could force people to purchase insurance from a private company. So, one thing puzzles me: My state requires all drivers to have insurance. Is this too, unconstitutional?

Any lawyers out there who would like to comment?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth.

–Cognitive inconsistency and how it makes us uneducate our children

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand Monetary Sovereignty, do not understand economics. Cutting the federal deficit is the most ignorant and damaging step the federal government could take. It ranks ahead of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
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I am fascinated by the human ability to suffer from two, mutually exclusive beliefs. Psychologists call this phenomenon “cognitive inconsistency.” The cognitive inconsistency I often discuss on this blog is the belief the U.S. federal government could have difficulty paying its bills, while acknowledging the U.S. federal government has the unlimited ability to create money. Most amazing; this cognitive inconsistency is shared by laymen and renowned, Nobel-winning “experts” alike

Now, consider the Pledge of Allegiance. Why do we require our students to take school time rote reciting it? Very few people believe it makes students more patriotic. Many kids recite the words wrong (“one nation, underground, invisible,” “livery injust is”), and the concept of being allegiant to a flag, surely is beyond the understanding of most kids, and probably many adults, too. So why? The pandering politicians, religious zealots and hyper-patriots tell us it is “good for the kids,” and somehow we buy that. Cognitive inconsistency. (If it worked, why aren’t adults made to do it?)

I mention cognitive inconsistency today, because an interesting new example popped up in my home village of Wilmette, IL. According to the local paper,

Wilmette schools plan to add a “moment of silence” to the opening of the school day in the wake of an appellate court ruling that the Illinois Silent Prayer and Student Prayer Act is constitutional because it does not require the time be used for prayer . . . legislators cited the secular and practical purpose of calming students at the beginning of the day. . . the teacher will monitor 15 seconds of silence, then the pledge (of Allegiance) will be recited . . . This period shall not be conducted as a religious exercise, but shall be an opportunity for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day.

This latest bit of cognitive inconsistency is hilarious on several counts. It clearly is a religious lie, an attempt by the pious to sneak in a bit more religiosity (remember the addition of “under God” to the Pledge) in the guise of “calming” students. And what about the very name of the bill . . . “Student Prayer Act.” Would you consider lying in the name of religion to be cognitive inconsistency, ironic or merely hilarious? And the idea that the children will use the time for “silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day” – is this cognitive inconsistency or simply a sad joke?

And finally, the notion that 15 seconds is the right length of time for this silent reflection – cognitive inconsistency or just hilarious? Or is it neither, because it adds one more silly burden to schools that already endure excessive silly burdens? But who could be surprised? The law was passed by politicians. These are the guys who expound and vote on our economic futures, while not understanding Monetary Sovereignty, the basis of economics. What next? Mandatory flag sewing classes? Our educational system has been turned into a mess, but we have time for silliness?

And just as I was writing the above post, I saw the following:

By Kevin Huffman, winner of The Post’s 2009 America’s Next Great Pundit Contest, is executive vice president of public affairs at Teach for America., Monday, January 31, 2011

Last week, 40-year-old Ohio mother Kelley Williams-Bolar was released after serving nine days in jail on a felony conviction for tampering with records. Williams-Bolar’s offense? Lying about her address so her two daughters, zoned to the lousy Akron city schools, could attend better schools in the neighboring Copley-Fairlawn district.

Williams-Bolar has become a cause célèbre in a case that crosses traditional ideological bounds. African American activists are outraged, asking: Would a white mother face the same punishment for trying to get her kids a better education?

Meanwhile, conservatives view the case as evidence of the need for broader school choice. What does it say when parents’ options are so limited that they commit felonies to avoid terrible schools? . . .In this country, if you are middle or upper class, you have school choice. You can, and probably do, choose your home based on the quality of local schools. Or you can opt out of the system by scraping together the funds for a parochial school.

But if you are poor, you’re out of luck, subject to the generally anti-choice bureaucracy. Hoping to win the lottery into an open enrollment “choice” school in your district? Good luck. How about a high-performing charter school? Sure – if your state doesn’t limit their numbers and funding like most states do. And vouchers? Hiss! You just touched a political third rail.

Williams-Bolar lived in subsidized housing and was trapped in a failed system. In a Kafkaesque twist, she was taking college-level courses to become a teacher herself – a dream she now will never realize as a convicted felon. It’s America’s version of the hungry man stealing bread to feed his family, only to have his hand cut off as punishment.

. . . The harsh reality is this: We may have done away with Jim Crow laws, but we have a Jim Crow public education system. As Dan Domenech of the American Association of School Administrators told NPR last week, “The correlation between student achievement and Zip code is 100 percent. The quality of education you receive is entirely predictable based on where you live.” And where you live in America today depends largely on income and race.

Consider the recent results from a test of 15-year-olds around the world. Headlines noted the embarrassing American mediocrity (31st out of 65 countries in math, with scores below the international average). Competing with China and Finland – they’re on track to scrap it out with Bulgaria and Mexico.

Some on the left will say this is the pernicious result of poverty. Solve poverty, and you solve the Zip-code-equals-outcomes issue. Some on the right will blame culture. Stop teenage pregnancy and crime, and the outcomes look different.

Actually, it’s not teenage pregnancy that is a problem; it’s teenage birthing. But don’t allow any of them to have an abortion. We want all the unwanted, unaffordable, unsupervised children we can get, because as everyone knows, teenagers have the sense to just say “No.” And if they don’t, tough luck.

Like millions of parents hoping to do right by their kids, Kelley Williams-Bolar thought that schools were the answer. She didn’t have the luxury of waiting a generation while intellectuals argue about poverty or culture. She looked at her options, she looked at the law and she looked at her children. Then she made a choice. What would you have done?

In summary, while politicians (whose kids attend the best schools) focus on the Pledge of Allegiance and 15 seconds of silent . . .? . . . (anything, but prayer), there is no time, no creative thinking and no money for schools. How do we know? The politicians tell us federal deficits will be bad for our children, and heaven forbid they want to do anything bad for our children . . . oh, except not educating them.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth.

–Extra! Read all about it! World’s Meanest People Get Meaner

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand monetary sovereignty, do not understand economics. Cutting the federal deficit is the most ignorant and damaging step the federal government could take. It ranks ahead of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
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We know about the right wing’s effort to arrest, search and deport every undocumented immigrant. Never mind the human suffering this would cause.

And we know about the right wing’s effort to overturn the law granting citizenship to all children born in the U.S., specifically children of undocumented aliens. Never mind the human suffering this would cause.

And we know about the right wing’s efforts to overturn the health care insurance law, which provides coverage to millions of poor people who could not otherwise afford it, and which also provides coverage for people with pre-existing health problems, who die prematurely without health care. Never mind the human suffering this would cause.

And we know about the right wing’s efforts to make gays second class citizens both in the military and in civilian life. Never mind the human suffering this has caused.

We almost have grown accustomed to the right wing beating down on the less fortunate. Almost, but not quite.

From The Raw Story

House Republicans aim to redefine rape to limit abortion coverage
By Nathan Diebenow, Saturday, January 29th, 2011 — 3:25 pm

A majority of House Republicans are taking aim at decreasing federal funding for reproductive health by changing the definition of rape in a newly-filed bill. Currently, the federal government denies taxpayer monies to be used to pay for abortions, except in cases when pregnancies result from rape or incest or when the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life.

However, if the 173 mainly Republican co-sponsors of the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” have their way, that would all change. Instead of keeping the 30-year-old definition of rape in federal law, the bill would modify it to “forcible rape,” thereby severely limiting the health care choices of millions of American women and their families.

Notice the title of this bill includes the loaded words “Taxpayer Funding,” a misstatement of the facts. Taxpayers do not fund federal spending. If all taxes ended tomorrow, this would not change by even one dollar, the federal government’s ability to fund whatever it wishes. That is the basis of Monetary Sovereignty.

“This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible,” Nick Baumann of Mother Jones wrote recently. He continued, “For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion.”

If the bill becomes law, parents of minors would also be banned from paying for pregnancy termination for their daughters with tax-exempt health savings accounts. Also, the cost of the private health insurance that covered the treatment would not be able to be deducted as a medical expense for tax purposes.

The bill introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) was the second major piece of legislation filed by the Republicans after its attempt to repeal “The Affordable Care Act.” Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) hailed Smith’s bill as “one of our highest legislative priorities.”

Think about it. With all the problems facing America — joblessness, education, poverty, homelessness, war, infrastructure, energy, the ecology — repealing the health care law is one of the right wing’s highest legislative priorities!

The bill would also deny other exemptions for rape victims who were drugged or given alcohol, who were mentally limited, and who were date raped. The incest exception of the bill granted federally-funded abortions only if the woman is under 18.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) plans to introduce a bill that would strip Planned Parenthood of all Title X family planning funding, which has made it possible for millions of low-income women to choose and pay for contraception and other basic preventive health care since 1970.

So the right wing has a vendetta against gays, undocumented men, women and children, even children born here in America, poor people, sick people, raped women, raped children and low-income women who don’t want to conceive unaffordable babies. That’s quite a sad record of stomping on the underdog.

The right wing loves to quote President Reagan, but this group is light years away from him. President Reagan was a gentleman, a compassionate man. He wasn’t a mean bastard.

But wait, perhaps the right wing isn’t so mean after all. Remember, they did fight to preserve tax decreases for the wealthy.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth.

–Will someone please, please explain Monetary Sovereignty to Stephen Gandel and Joseph Stiglitz. Please.

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand monetary sovereignty, do not understand economics. Cutting the federal deficit is the most ignorant and damaging step the federal government could take. It ranks ahead of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
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One problem with the science of economics is: The people who win the awards don’t understand the science. Examples: Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, who do not know the implications of Monetary Sovereignty. The effect of our most respected (or at least most prominent) economists expounding with false information, is to create a vast blanket of ignorance that has shaded from knowledge, not only our political leaders, but the voters who select them.

For your amusement and/or anger, here is yet another misleading article, this time written by Stephen Gandel, who in it quoted Mr. Stiglitz:

View from Davos: How Bad is a $1.5 Trillion Deficit?
Posted by Stephen Gandel Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 12:38 pm.

The title itself misleads by talking about the deficit being “bad,” when in fact it not only is good, but absolutely necessary. A growing economy requires a growing supply of money, and the misnamed “deficit” is the federal government’s method for supplying the economy with money.

Joseph Stiglitz is one of the many economists talking about debt at Davos. Now that we have the recovery, we will have to pay for it. The question is did we take the appropriate measures or did we overspend.

The notion of having to “pay for” the recovery some time in the future, is nonsensical. The recovery was enabled by yesterday’s federal spending, or perhaps more accurately, yesterday’s money creation.

On Thursday, the CBO estimated that the federal deficit in 2011 will reach nearly $1.5 trillion. That’s up from nearly $1.3 trillion last year. Three years after the financial crisis many had hoped what were supposed to be temporary budget deficits would be shrinking by now.

Shrinking deficits cause recessions and depressions See: Recession cause. The “many” who had “hoped” the deficits would shrink do not understand the realities of economics.

At a dinner of economists on Wednesday night, economist Carmen Reinhart predicted that the US was headed toward a crisis where we would be forced to cut many of our social services. Raghuram Rajan, a former chief economist at the IMF, said that the measures that the UK were making to deal with their deficit right now were a good move. He said we too should deal with our fiscal problems now, rather than putting them off.

Lacking knowledge of Monetary Sovereignty, Messrs. Reinhart and Rajan equate Europe’s monetarily non-sovereign problems with U.S. finances. The U.K, which is Monetarily Sovereign, has begun to punish its children and grandchildren by choking off the nation’s money supply, needlessly.

But not everyone thinks the US debt problem is so dire. While the total deficit is larger this year than last year, it is slightly smaller as a percentage of GDP than last year.

Not only does Mr. Gandel misunderstand Monetary Sovereignty, he doesn’t realize he is making the classic apples/oranges comparison: Debt/GDP. Debt is the total of outstanding T-securities issued since the beginning of our nation. GDP is a one-year measure of production. How an intelligent person can compare a one-year measure with a 200-year measure is beyond me.

What’s more, the US may have more ability to borrow than other countries because of the dominant role of the dollar in the world economy. The fact that our dollars are so widely seen as a safe asset gives America the ability to borrow more than say Greece or Ireland before hitting the breaking point.

It gets worse and worse. A Monetarily Sovereign nation does not need to borrow the currency it previously created and has the unlimited ability to create. There is no “breaking point.” If tomorrow, the U.S. stopped “borrowing” (i.e. creating T-securities from thin air and exchanging them for dollars it previously created from thin air), this would not reduce by even one cent the federal government’s ability to pay its bills. And mentioning monetarily non-sovereign nations (Greece and Ireland) in the same breath as the U.S. displays stunning ignorance of economics.

Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who is also at Davos, said that while he is worried about some of the US states debt problem, he thinks (federal) debt may not be as bad as some people think. In fact, Stiglitz would even be for increasing our debt even more. As long as it was spent on things like infrastructure and education, which can produce jobs, and boost incomes.

Mr. Stiglitz is correct that the “debt may not be as bad as some people think,” unless one realizes the debt is too small, which is bad. But, Mr. Stigltiz is a victim of “first use syndrome,” wherein he thinks money ceases to exist after its first use. No, Mr. Stigltiz, the first use does not need to be infrastructure and education. It can be virtually anything – aid to the poor, aid to states, army pay or research and development – anything that gets money circulating in the economy.

So there is a debt cliff, but the US may not be there yet.

No, no, no, Mr. Gandel. There is no debt cliff, unless spending too little can be considered a cliff. I urge my readers to contact Mr. Gandel and beg him to familiarize himself with Monetary Sovereignty. If he, Mr. Stiglitz and Mr. Krugman don’t get it, how can the average voter, much less the politicians, understand?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth.