–Monetary Sovereignty for Young People, Part 3. Inflation

Mitchell’s laws: The more budgets are cut and taxes inceased, the weaker an economy becomes. To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments. Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder. Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
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Some people have learned that the federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, now has the unlimited power to create dollars. And of those people, some have learned that taxes hurt the economy by taking dollars out of the economy. And of those people, some see that federal spending grows the economy by adding dollars to the economy.

But, far too many people still believe federal deficits should be reduced. These people want increased taxes or reduced federal spending. How can they understand that dollars grow the economy, while still wanting fewer dollars in the economy? The answer: They fear inflation.

Inflation is when prices go up. Not just one price, or a few prices. Inflation is when almost all prices go up.

Is inflation a bad thing or a good thing? It can be both. It can be a bad thing, because your dollars will buy less of what you want – less food, less clothing, less everything. So, unless you get more dollars, inflation will make you poorer.

But the federal government believes a little bit of inflation every year is good. If people know prices will go up, they will buy things now, to take advantage of today’s lower prices, rather than waiting until later.

When people buy now, business’s sales increase now, which increases profits now. This leads to increased hiring. Unemployment goes down. When more people work, more people buy things, which further benefits business.

There also is a psychological benefit from inflation. Working people want salary increases. Inflation makes it possible for businesses to give raises with less valuable dollars. So, though the buying power of the higher salaries may be no more than the buying power of the previous, lower salaries, people like feeling they have more dollars to spend.

The federal government would like inflation to be about 2% – 3% every year. I say “about,” because it is impossible for the government to precisely control inflation.

While too much inflation is bad, its opposite – deflation – is thought to be a disaster. The hypothesis: During deflation, people cut back on buying. They wait for tomorrow’s lower prices. Businesses suffer. Profits go down. Hiring goes down. Unemployment goes up. The government will do anything it can to avoid deflation, so to be safe, it leans more toward 3%, than 2%, inflation.

Although 2% – 3% inflation every year is a “little bit” of inflation, over many years it can add up to a lot. Over 10 years, a 3% annual inflation adds up to 34% inflation. When someone says we have had “a lot of” inflation, they usually are talking about longer periods of time. Fifty years of 3% inflation means prices, on average, will more than triple.

How Does The Government Control Inflation?

Inflation is a balance between the value of goods and services, and the value of money. Inflation happens when the value of goods and services goes up or the value of money goes down – or both.

The value of everything is determined by supply and demand. When the supply of anything goes up, its value goes down. When the demand for anything goes up, its value goes up.

Years ago, there wasn’t as much trade between nations as there is today. Now, we get cars from Japan, grapes from Chile, clothing from China, and answering services from India. We import millions of things from dozens of countries. We are in a world market.

This makes inflation in any one country less likely. If the price of any one product goes up, we probably can buy it from many other nations, which reduces the likelihood of a general increase in prices. But, there is an exception: Oil.

The price of oil affects the prices of all other products and services, so when the worldwide price of oil goes up, we can have a general increase in prices – inflation.

The U.S. government has very little control over the value of goods and services. So to reduce inflation, the U.S. government tries to increase the value of dollars. To increase the value of dollars, the government can limit the supply of dollars, or it can increase the demand for dollars.

There are four problems with limiting the dollar supply to control inflation:

1. A growing economy needs a growing supply of money. So historically, when the government has limited the dollar supply we have had recessions and depressions.

2. To limit the dollar supply, the government either must increase taxes or reduce spending, and either option causes a huge political debate in Congress. This debate can take months or years. People called “lobbyists” try to influence Congress. Voters write and call their representatives. Polls are taken. Meetings are held. Votes are taken in the Senate and the House. And all the while, inflation could be growing. A faster inflation control is needed.

3. The effects of tax increases and limited spending are hard to predict. Every tax affects different people. If inflation were, for instance, at 5%, which specific tax should be increased and by how much? No one knows. Government spending also affects different people. Which specific spending should be reduced and by how much? Again, no one knows. Go too far, and we could cause a disastrous deflation or even a depression.

4. Finally, each tax increase or spending limit ultimately affects businesses. But to grow, businesses need to predict the future. Frequent tax increases or spending cuts make prediction impossible.

Because trying to control inflation by controlling the supply of dollars can have serious negative consequences, the U.S. tries to control the demand for dollars.

Demand is based on risk and reward. If the risk of owning money goes up, the demand for that money goes down. If the reward goes up, the demand goes up.

For any currency, “risk” is inflation. Since controlling inflation is the goal, the way to reach that goal is to increase the reward for owning money.

Bank savings accounts, bank CDs, money markets and bonds all are forms of money. What would make you more likely to demand money rather than real estate or stocks, which are not forms of money? That is, what would make you more likely to put your money into savings accounts, CDs, money markets and bonds? Answer: Increased interest rates.

And that is how the government controls inflation. It increases interest rates to increase the demand for dollars.

This has three advantages:

  1. It doesn’t require endless Congressional debate. The Federal Reserve has the legal power to change interest rates, overnight.
  2. It has broad economic effects rather than unfairly penalizing one industry or one business.
  3. It can be done in small, frequent, controllable steps, rather than in huge steps that could have bad consequences

It is true that increasing interest rates also increases business costs, which could be inflationary – exactly the opposite of what is wanted. But history shows that on balance, the small increase in business costs has less effect on inflation than does the large increase in money value.

There could be two reasons for this:

1. A 1% increase in interest rates will have only a tiny effect on the average business’s overall costs. But if today’s interest rate is 3%, an increase to 4% is actually a 33% increase, having a huge affect on the demand for money.
2. The “world market” effect. If any business raises its prices, its goods or services can be purchased elsewhere.

In Summary

–Inflation is a general increase in the value of goods and services compared to the value of money.
–A little inflation stimulates economic growth.
–Federal deficits are absolutely necessary to grow the economy and to prevent recessions.
–By themselves, deficits could be inflationary. However, today’s world trade helps prevent this, so inflation today is caused not by deficits, but by oil prices.
–The government can control inflation via interest rates.

The Inflation Fear

Water is necessary for life, but if you drink 50 gallons of water in one day, you will die. So for a healthy life, don’t drink too little water, or too much water, but do drink water, especially if you plan to work out. And for sure, don’t stop drinking water.

Money growth is necessary for economic growth. But too much money can cause inflation. So for a healthy economy, don’t create too little money or too much money, but do create money, if you want the economy to grow. And for sure, don’t stop creating money (running deficits).

The goal is to grow the economy as much as possible without too much inflation. The method is to create as many dollars as possible, up to the point where interest rates don’t control inflation. It surprises many people to learn the U.S. never has had an uncontrollable inflation caused by too many dollars.

What About the Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe?

People who want to reduce the federal deficit often point to the (German) Weimar Republic and to Zimbabwe, as examples of countries that experienced hyperinflation (extreme inflation). The deficit reducers wrongly say those hyperinflations were caused by too much government spending.

However, the Weimar inflation was caused by harsh, World War I sanctions put on Germany by the winning Allies, and these sanctions destroyed the German economy. The Zimbabwe inflation was caused by Robert Mugabe, who stole the nation’s farm land from farmers and gave it to people we did not know how to farm.

In both cases, the inflation caused the money creation as the government tried to pay its bills, rather than the money creation causing the inflation.

In Part 4, we’ll discuss Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

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


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No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Monetary Sovereignty for Young People, Part 2. What is a dollar?

Mitchell’s laws: The more budgets are cut and taxes inceased, the weaker an economy becomes. To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments. Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder. Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
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The biggest problem in economics may be that “everyone knows” and at the same time, very few people know. For instance: Almost everyone knows what a dollar is. Yet, almost no one knows what a dollar is.

Isn’t that strange?

Imagine that you have a safe deposit box, a checking account and a savings account, all at your local bank. You go to the bank and you say, “I want to see my safe deposit box and everything in it.”

So they take you to the vault room and show you your box. You can see your box, reach out and touch your box, and you can open your box to see the papers and valuables you keep in it. Your box is a physical reality.

Then you say, “I want to see my checking account and everything in it.” The bank teller might print a piece of paper with your name at the top, and your account number and a number showing how much money you have in your account.

But it’s just a piece of paper, not your checking account. You tear up the paper. Have you torn up your checking account? Of course not.

You say, “No, I don’t want to see a piece of paper; I want to see my actual checking account.” But no matter how hard you insist, the bank will not be able to show you anything more than evidence you have an account. The bank will not be able to show you your checking account because your account does not exist in the physical world. It is just numbers.

Then you say, “At least show me my dollars in my account,” and again the bank teller will print out a piece of paper.

You say, “No, I don’t want to see numbers. I want to see my actual dollars that you have stored in my account.” If you want to make a withdrawal, the bank can give you a check or dollar bills, but checks and dollar bills are not dollars. They merely are evidence that you have a claim on dollars.

Like your checking account, dollars do not exist in the physical world. They are just numbers.

Now this may shock you, because nearly everyone believes a dollar bill is a dollar. But it isn’t. It’s just evidence you own a dollar. A dollar bill is a title to a dollar.

If you own a house, the evidence you own it is a paper called a “title.” But, the paper is not the house. A dollar bill is not a dollar; it is just worth a dollar.

Every day, the US Government Printing Office takes thousands of blank sheets of paper and prints them into sheets and sheets of dollar bills. Are they dollars? No, they are just worthless paper, like the paper your bank gave you.

The printing office sends these worthless dollar bills to banks, to give to people as evidence these people own dollars. But let’s say, on the way to a bank, the truck carrying the dollar bills crashes, and 10 million dollar bills burn up. Has the government lost 10 million dollars? No, because dollar bills are not dollars.

This is important because people often talk about the federal government “printing” money. But though the government prints dollar bills, it cannot print money. No one can print something that does not physically exist.

And this is important, because it helps you see that dollars are nothing more than accounting balances. Dollars can’t be seen, touched, smelled or tasted. They can’t be stored or shipped.

And all this is important, because it shows why the federal government has the unlimited ability to create dollars and never, never, ever can run short of dollars, if it doesn’t wish to. To create dollars, all the government does is mark up numbers in checking accounts.

And it’s really, really important, because it shows why Social Security and Medicare never can run out of dollars, no matter what benefits they pay and what taxes they collect.

I’ll tell you more about that, soon.

Meanwhile, think about this. The United States government is Monetarily Sovereign. “Monetarily” means related to money. And “Sovereign” means having supreme power. The U.S. government has supreme power over its dollars. It can create or destroy its sovereign dollars, whenever it wants, as much as it wants, whenever it wants. The U.S. government never needs to ask anyone for dollars.

Try to visualize what having that power means.

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


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No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Monetary Sovereignty for young people: 1

Mitchell’s laws: The more budgets are cut and taxes inceased, the weaker an economy becomes. To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments. Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder. Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
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I’ve almost despaired of teaching economics to adults. Too many fixed minds. Worse than fixed. Actively resistant. Those of us who try to the tell facts often meet not just with doubt, but with hatred. With name calling. Swearing. Sneering.

This isn’t sincere questioning, which I would love. It’s far deeper. Perhaps, it’s fear — the horror some people feel at discovering they’ve been wrong.

The adults may be hopeless. Eyes sewn shut. Ears plastered over. Brains cemented. So I’ve been thinking, maybe there’s hope for the young people. And with that thought, I’m going to write a few posts just for young people, whose minds still are open.

Sometimes, things that are complicated also are simple. Take the weather. Weather is complicated. It’s hard to predict more than a day or two in advance. Each second, millions of individual weather events, in locations around the world, affect weather in all other locations.

Heat in Africa can affect storms in America. Wind in China can cause drought in Kansas. It’s all connected.

Yet, weather also is simple. The sun warms the earth and the air. Cold air holds less moisture than warm air, so cooling air causes clouds, which lead to rain — or snow if the air is cold enough. Summer is warmer than winter, because the tilt of the earth makes seasons. And if you look up into a clear, blue sky, your picnic probably won’t get rained out. Simple.

Economics too, is complicated and hard to predict. Each second, millions of world-wide transactions affect other economies, worldwide. A purchase in America can change a salary in Asia.

Yet economics is simple, and that simplicity can be understood by young people, if not by adults. So here is the first attempt.
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MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE– Part 1.

Before August 15, 1971, the United States government was on a gold standard. This meant, the U.S. government needed to own gold before it could pay its bills.

It didn’t pay its bills with gold. No, it paid with dollars. But unless it owned gold, the U.S. was not allowed to create its own dollars. That was the law. No gold, no dollars to pay bills.

And when the government didn’t have enough gold to make dollars to pay its bills, it had to get dollars from someone else. Either it had to borrow dollars, or it to levy taxes.

Not being able to create dollars, whenever you want to, is called being “monetarily non-sovereign.” You and I are monetarily non-sovereign. We can’t just create dollars. We can’t pay our bills unless we obtain dollars from someone else. Our states, counties and cities are monetarily non-sovereign. They have to obtain dollars from taxes or borrowing. They are not allowed to make dollars out of thin air. That is the law.

On August 15, 1971, President Nixon announced that the U.S. would change the law. No longer would we need to have gold. The federal government would simply create dollars without having gold. No gold. No problem. President Nixon made us MONETARILY SOVEREIGN.

And this changed everything.

Today, in America, only the federal government is Monetarily Sovereign. Only the federal government can create dollars out of thin air. The federal government is unique.

Here is how you and I pay our bills:

   Personal Income (salary, investments)
+ Personal Borrowing
Personal dollars available to pay our bills

In order to pay our bills, we need to have a source of dollars. We are monetarily non-sovereign

And states, counties and cities pay their bills the same way the same way:

   State Income (taxes)
+ State Borrowing
State dollars available to pay state bills

Yes, the states, counties and cities also need a source of dollars, to pay their bills. They too are monetarily non-sovereign.

That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it always has been. So naturally, many people think the federal government works the same way. And once it did, but now it doesn’t. Not after 1971. Here’s what the federal government does with any money it receives:

   Federal Borrowing
+ Federal Taxing
Dollars destroyed

What??! The federal government destroys all that tax money you and your parents send it?? And the government even destroys all the money it borrows??

That’s right. All dollars going to the federal government simply disappear, never to be seen again. Amazing, isn’t it? All the taxes you and your parents pay, gone. Borrowed dollars, too. Gone. Useless. If taxes were $0 and borrowing was $0, the government still could pay its bills.

Of course, when you think about it, why would anyone who can create dollars, need to get dollars from someone else? If you had a “dollar-printing press” in your basement, would you ask your friends for dollars? Of course, not.

So, here’s how the federal government pays its bills:

1. A vendor sends the federal government an invoice, let’s say for $1,000.

2. The federal government sends instructions (not dollars) to the vendor’s bank, instructing the bank to increase the number in supplier’s checking account by 1,000.

If the vendor once had $5,000 listed in his checking account, that number now is $6,000. The vendor now has 1,000 more dollars than he had before. Where did that extra $1,000 come from? The vendor’s bank created it out of thin air, because it had received the federal government’s instructions.

And that’s it. Every day, the federal government sends those kind of instructions to banks, and the banks obey those instructions. The banks don’t ask whether the federal government has or doesn’t have and dollars. The banks just do as they are told. That’s the law. That’s how the federal government creates dollars.

What do instructions look like? Sometimes they are government checks. Other times, they just are invisible wired instructions. Dollars are just numbers in a bank account. So, changing the numbers changes the amount of money in the bank account.

So why do we pay federal taxes? Before 1971, the federal government was monetarily non-sovereign, just like you and me and the states, counties and cities. It needed a source of dollars so it could pay its bills. It did not have the unlimited ability to send instructions.

Unfortunately, the politicians in Washington, DC do not yet understand that the federal government became Monetarily Sovereign in 1971. They do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty. So they act as though the federal government’s spending still relied on taxes and borrowing, as it did when we were on a gold standard.

So, misleading themselves, they mislead you, the public. But it’s not. The federal government made a law that allows it to destroy tax dollars, and to create more dollars by spending.

When the government spends more dollars than taxpayers send it, that is called a “deficit.” Many people don’t like the idea of a “deficit.” It sounds negative. So they want to reduce the deficit.

But “deficit” merely tells how many dollars the federal government has created from thin air. To reduce the deficit, the government would have to increase taxes or spend less.

Would you or your parents like to pay more taxes? I don’t think so. Paying taxes makes people poorer. And if the government spends less, we’ll have less of things we like. Worse roads. Broken bridges. Less health care. Less Social Security. A weaker army. Poorer schools. The federal government uses “deficits” to pay for millions of things that benefit us.

No, reducing the deficit is the worst thing that could happen, because it takes dollars out of everyone’s pockets. To make our economy grow, and to make our lives better, the government needs to cut taxes and spend more. It needs to increase the deficit.

Some people are afraid that if the deficit increases, we’ll have inflation. Inflation is when everything gets more expensive. The government likes a little bit of inflation, because that makes people buy things today, rather than waiting until later. When people buy things today, rather than waiting for later, the economy grows, there are more jobs, and people lead better lives.

However, it is true that if the deficit goes up too much, we could have too much inflation, so it’s important that if ever we start to have too much inflation, the deficit should stop going up. The deficit should go up enough to make the economy grow, but not enough to cause too much inflation.

Fortunately, though sometimes we have had too much inflation, this never has been caused by deficits. (Actually, inflation has been caused by oil prices.) So far, the U.S. has been free to increase the deficit by cutting taxes and increasing spending, and not cause too much inflation.

Later, we’ll talk about what dollars really are — and are not. Meanwhile, just write any questions into the comments box, and I’ll try to answer them.

And if you’re an adult, please show this to a young person.

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


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No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Dear Lord, what has happened to my Republican Party? Five traitor images.

Mitchell’s laws: The more budgets are cut and taxes inceased, the weaker an economy becomes. To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments. Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder. Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
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As readers of this blog know, I’d tended to vote Republican. I’d felt they had a better handle on the economy than the Democrats. However with the election of G.W. Bush, and the takeover by the Tea Party, I now feel the Republican Party has lost its way. What do you think?

Washington Post
GOP budget plan cuts deeply into domestic programs, reshapes Medicare, Medicaid
By Rosalind S. Helderman and Lori Montgomery, Updated: Tuesday, March 20, 2012

House Republicans laid down a bold but risky election-year marker Tuesday, unveiling a budget proposal that aims to tame the national debt by reshaping Medicare and cutting deeply into Medicaid, food stamps and other programs for the poor, while reshuffling the tax code to sharply lower rates.

Translation: Cut the money supply to stimulate the economy, i.e. apply leeches to cure anemia. Cut benefits for the poor and middle classes. “Sharply lower rates” to the rich.

Congressional Republicans argue that restraining future borrowing is a moral imperative and that entitlement programs for the elderly and the poor must be redrawn both to reduce red ink and to ensure that federal benefits continue to be available.

Translation: It is a “moral” imperative to screw the elderly, the poor and the middle classes, so the government can do what it could do anyway without the screwing: i.e. pay its bills.

But the document — which pairs deep spending cuts with a reduction in the top tax rate paid by the wealthy — quickly provided new fodder for Democrats, who argued that Republicans would slash the social safety net while protecting the rich.

Translation: We call screwing the elderly, the poor and the middle class, “broadening the tax base and making taxes fairer.” We’ll use those words often in the future.

The proposal, authored by Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), calls for spending cuts and tax changes that would put the nation on course to wipe out deficits and balance the budget by 2040.

Translation: We want to wipe out federal money creation and make sure we enter a depression that will make the Great Depression look like Disney World. The rich, of course, will remain rich, but the middle class will disappear. Anyone want to buy an apple?

Ryan calls for turning over to the states responsibility for the major federal programs for the poor, including Medicaid and food stamps, and giving recipients a deadline to find work and get off the government dole — much as welfare reform did to cash benefits in the late 1990s.

Translation: The federal government never can run out of dollars, but most states are financially destitute. So let’s pile it on the states. Regarding the poor, if those lazy bums don’t find work, let them and their children starve (or eat cake).

All told, Ryan proposes to slash federal spending by $5.3 trillion over the next decade compared with President Obama’s latest budget blueprint, with the biggest savings taken from health programs — including the repeal of Obama’s initiative to expand health coverage to the uninsured — and entitlements for the poor.

If the poor can’t afford health insurance, let them die. Or, let them go to hospital emergency rooms, which are twice as expensive, and will be paid for by the 1% anyway (but the 1% doesn’t know it, so don’t tell them.) As for the middle class, this will bankrupt them. So??

But it might not be enough for many tea party conservatives, who are demanding that Republicans balance the budget within the next 10 years.

Translation: We realize the Tea Party is composed of economic idiots, but they along with the Christian Taliban are our base, so we’re stuck with them.

Ryan argued that the plan offers “real spending discipline. It does this not through indiscriminate cuts that endanger our military . . . ”

Translation: We, of the right wing love guns, so we’ll protect the military.

Ryan said, adding that he has spoken with the major GOP candidates, who have all told him he is “on the right track. Each of these people running for president have all given their various ideas and reforms that perfectly jive with and are consistent with what we’re proposing.”

Translation: Our fools are so greedy for power, they would kill their own grandmothers for one vote. So, of course they agree with the party line.

In reaction to Democratic criticism that the plan “ends Medicare,” Ryan has tweaked that proposal: He now aims to preserve traditional Medicare as an option, though seniors could be required to pay significantly more for Medicare coverage if the program proved to be more expensive than the private plans.

Translation: Sure, you can keep Medicare; just pay more.

But though Ryan crafted the new variation with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), Democrats have made clear that the veneer of bipartisanship will not inoculate him from a fresh round of political attack.

Translation: We found ourselves a Judas. Hey, we’re the religious right. What did you expect?

“The Republican proposal would end the Medicare guarantee, shift costs to seniors, and let Medicare wither on the vine, while providing billions in tax breaks for Big Oil and special interests, and destroying American jobs,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

Translation: Yes, Nancy is correct. But nobody listens to her. They’re more concerned with her face job.

On taxes, Ryan offers a bit more detail than he did last year about how Republicans would reshape the tax code. The proposal calls for replacing the current tax structure’s six brackets with just two: a 10 percent rate for lower-income earners and a 25 percent rate for upper-income earners.

Translation: You poor people who pay less than 10% (not counting that regressive FICA you pay) will now be additionally screwed, but don’t worry. It will help the rich. Feel better?

To pay for those changes, Ryan proposes to wipe out a vast array of deductions, credits and other tax breaks benefiting people and companies at virtually every income level. Neither he nor House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) on Tuesday spelled out specifics, but tax experts said their proposal would almost certainly have to take a whack at expensive tax breaks such as those for home mortgage interest, employer-provided health insurance and retirement savings.

Translation: We just ran this by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. They say it sounds good to them.

Ryan proposes $1.028 trillion in total agency spending — $19 billion less than the cap set during last summer’s bitter showdown over raising the legal limit on government borrowing, known as the debt ceiling. Ryan also proposes to instruct six House committees to come up with proposals by May for generating additional savings and averting across-the-board cuts set to hit in January.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said, “By desperately attempting to appease their extreme conservative base, House Republicans are reneging on a deal their own speaker shook on less than eight months ago,” she said. “They have shown that a deal with them isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on and they are threatening families across America yet again with the prospect of a government shutdown.”

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) countered that the $1.047 trillion cap represents an upper limit, not an agreement. “People have limits on credit cards. That doesn’t mean that you’re required to spend up to the limit, it just says you can’t spend anymore than that,” Boehner told reporters. “We all know that we’ve got a real fiscal problem here in Washington. And, frankly, we think we can do better.

Translation: I am extremely religious, and my word means nothing. So, what’s wrong with that?
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Overall translation: If you make less than $300K per year, or truly are religious rather than mouthing piety, you’d be a fool to vote Tea/Republican. But if you are wealthy, and/or don’t give a damn about people less fortunate than you, and/or claim to be a patriot, but really don’t care about Americans, by all means vote for the Tea/Republicans.

I award the Tea/Republican Party five traitor images for trying to do more damage to America than Osama bin Laden ever dreamed of — just to win power.

Unpatriotic flagUnpatriotic flagUnpatriotic flagUnpatriotic flagUnpatriotic flag

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


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No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY