Do immigrant children take money from our children?

Contrary to popular myth, the U.S. government, being Monetarily Sovereign cannot run short of U.S. dollars to pay its bills. 

Image result for greenspan and bernanke
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.”
Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”

Readers of this site know that paying bills is the method by which the federal government creates dollars.

The more the federal government pays to creditors, the more dollars the government creates.

Even if the federal government collected zero taxes, it could pay its bills, forever.

That is why the following article demonstrates the massive ignorance being pumped into the populace by those who wish America ill.

Exclusive: With more immigrant children in detention, HHS cuts funds for other programs — like cancer research
Caitlin Dickson, Reporter,Yahoo News•September 19, 2018

The Department of Health and Human Services is diverting millions of dollars in funding from a number of programs, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, to pay for housing for the growing population of detained immigrant children.

Federal financing doesn’t work that way. The federal government does not “divert dollars” to pay for anything. It creates new dollars, to pay for everything.

The federal government “has” infinite money, or more accurately, can create infinite money.  Though the federal government assigns budgets to each of its agencies, this is for the purpose of spending control, not because there is a real limit on available dollars.

If the government wanted to “pay for housing for the growing population of detained immigrant children,” it would do so without diverting even one penny from other programs.

The so-called “diversion” is a charade, a lie to convince you to accept cuts to social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and poverty aids.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar outlined his plan to reallocate up to $266 million in funding for the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) program in the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

Nearly $80 million of that money will come from other refugee support programs within ORR. The rest is being taken from other programs, including $16.7 million from Head Start, $5.7 million from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program and $13.3 million from the National Cancer Institute.

Money is also being diverted from programs dedicated to mental and maternal health, women’s shelters and substance abuse.

There is zero need to take money from Head Start, HIV/AIDS, and the National Cancer Institute unless these programs are less important than previously thought (doubtful).

The question is: Why does ORR need more money?

While the family separation policy has contributed to the demand for additional beds, the main reason is that children are spending more time in custody before they are released to a sponsor or returned home.

So far this month, discharges from custody have been running at a rate less than half the percent shown in reports obtained by Yahoo News from early April and from late July.

Meanwhile the intake of unaccompanied immigrant children into ORR facilities has remained relatively steady, with average daily referrals from Customs and Border Protection in the range of 100 to 200.

“This is not a story about a historically large surge in arrivals,” said Mark Greenberg, a former official with HHS’s Administration for Children and Families.

“The story is fundamentally about a significant slowdown in children being released from care.”

The people Donald Trump described as “rapists,” are being held longer — an increase in cruel laws being applied to children:

The majority of children housed in such facilities come to the U.S. on their own from the northern triangle countries of Central America — Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — often fleeing gang violence.

Months before the family separation crisis came to a head, unaccompanied minors were already spending extended periods of time in ORR facilities, which are intended to house children temporarily until a parent or suitable adult sponsor can be identified.

(Further) a new policy requiring ORR Director Scott Lloyd to personally approve the release of certain children resulted in many remaining in custody longer, even after a proper sponsor had been approved.

A New York federal judge in June determined that Lloyd had violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act by enacting the policy almost immediately upon being sworn in as director, “with no record demonstrating the need for change,” and ordered him to halt it.

A government’s cruelty is adopted by the populace, as the following excerpts from comments about the above article show:

Dog: “Imagine how much funding would be available for US CITIZENS if we cleared up these individuals status once and for all? Bring them either out of the shadows on the path to being upstanding, tax paying, Citizens or deported permanently.

“It’s just economics 101, increase revenue, reduce overhead. I am not talking blanket amnesty either. Those wanting to stay will pay to be vetted, pay back taxes, and be on “probation” until they become citizens.

“After the program begins, swift and harsh penalties for being outside the terms of the “new visa” program will be grounds for immediate deportation.

“If criminal charges are involved, they pay ALL fines and court costs. (US States and Federal Government NOT to provide legal council, either they pay for it themselves, though their country of origin Diplomatic servi e, then direct permanent deportation. Save your schoolyard insults, thought out comments/debate always welcome.”

The writer who calls himself “Dog” want’s these impoverished children — children who come here owning only the clothes on their backs — somehow to pay ALL costs, not receive legal counsel or be jailed, and serve their FULL sentence, then deported.

Thus, do the mean-spirited find false financial justification for their natural callous inclinations.

As you continue to read the excerpts from the comments, keep in mind that the federal government can pay for anything, and that federal taxpayers do not fund federal spending.

sweetexas19472
“Well, US seniors are being made to pay their own medicare premiums, copays, deductibles and congressional Sequestration $1250.00 a years out of pocket costs.

“Millions of US Seniors can not afford to use their Medicare and are not going to the doctor nor filling their unaffordable meds nor getting their cancer treatments nor dialysis treatments.

“It has become difficult to seniors to find a doctor who will take Medicare.

“Congress borrowed $2.8 Trillion from Seniors self funded social security trust fund in IOU’s. When a senior’s spouse dies, the senior who is a live, has the SS money cut in half.

“Leaving the widow or widower with the bills of two, while only getting one of the couples SS money.

“So I feel sorry for these children. Our own citizens should not have to suffer!”

Federal spending for immigrants does not take one dime from “our own children.” In fact, it adds stimulus dollars to the U.S. economy.

What takes dollars from “our own children”? An inhumane government, pretending it is running short of its own sovereign currency.

Genevieve
“The cost to the US taxpayer of feeding, housing educating, and providing medical care is being paid for out of whatever funds can be made available because Congress doesn’t have a budget for taking care of them.”

“Of course that means services and programs for US citizens will have less funding, and the situation will continue indefinitely if nothing is done about it.”

No. Federal “feeding, housing educating, and providing medical care” adds dollars that provide “services and programs for U.S. citizens.”

VERGIL
“Since it’s right on the border, SET THEM ON THE OTHER SIDE PLEASE. I’d prefer to use those funds for OUR senior citizens, OUR homeless, OUR needy, educational needs of OUR children, pretty much anything OUR CITIZENS need.”

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invisible hand
“Quite the difference from today when immigrants are desired by some because they will clean toilets, do landscaping and work in construction and once an “anchor baby” is dropped bring the rest of the family to experience the bounty that is available courtesy of American taxpayers.”

American taxpayers pay taxes, which are destroyed by the U.S. Treasury upon receipt. (See: “Does the U.S. Treasury really destroy your tax dollars?“)

Unlike state and local government taxes, which do pay for state and local government spending, federal taxes pay for nothing. The federal government creates new dollars, each time it pays for something.

Belia
“This makes no sense to me. We have hungry children and adults in this country too, who need help. Why does this continue to go on? They need to be sent back. We are not the world’s keeper.”

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Reha
“It shows some of the costs of illegal immigration. Medical and educational costs to US taxpayers is significant.”

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American Woman
“Just think of all the veterans, the homeless, our poor children or elderly that money could make all the difference in the world to.

No one forced those illegals to enter our country, they made a choice to break our immigration laws. Why are we rewarding them at the expense of our own?”

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John B
“Escort them and their parents back to the border, rather than “housing them”.. It is not our responsibility to house them at the expense of our own citizens!”

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debra
“I am doing without a lot of things because I am a senior citizen, it’s nice that my own country will throw me and other seniors under the bus for the sake of illegals, and just for older they raised my insurance rates, medicine prices, I am now looking for a job. but, as long as the illegals are okay. that’s my big concern. thanks!!!!”

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mem
“Deduct it from the $350 Million Dollars a year the US gives Mexico”

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Sandy
“Lots of money is going towards this, food shelter And hired security companies”

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JAMES
“The estimated cost of operating such emergency facilities is $750 per child per day…where does that leave OUR kids? Even on a good day I didn’t spend 750 dollars on mine.”

The above constitute only a tiny percentage of the numerous comments from one article, but they display a disturbing commonality:

  1. The writers are devoid of human compassion.
  2. The writers spread the false belief that federal spending for immigrants takes money from other programs and from taxpayers. (Federal spending for immigrants adds dollars to the economy and grows the economy, benefiting all Americans.)
  3. What you can’t see from the above samples is that a great many of them use identical language indicating the comments are rife with bots funded by anti-immigrant, anti-American, anti-poor groups, hoping to sway public opinion.

In summary, immigrants and their immigrant children, do not take dollars from American taxpayers or from American children.

For all of America’s history, this nation has been built on the backs of impoverished immigrants, coming here to build a better life.

The most ambitious, hard-working, bravest, most intelligent people are the ones who risk the perilous journey from their former lands.

As such, they are an asset to America, not a liability. These are who America need to keep us growing.

Immigrants are what have made America great, and nothing has happened in the past few decades to change that.

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

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.

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 The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA

2. Federally funded medicare — parts a, b & d, plus long-term care — for everyone

3. Provide a monthly economic bonus to every man, woman and child in America (similar to social security for all)

4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone

5. Salary for attending school

6. Eliminate federal taxes on business

7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 

8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.

9. Federal ownership of all banks

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

 

Law without compassion is tyranny

It takes only two things to keep people in chains:

The ignorance of the oppressed
And the treachery of their leaders

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I often had wondered how it was possible for the nation of Germany, a nation of good people — artists, musicians, scientists, doctors, fine upstanding people — could not only stand by, but actively support Hitler’s destruction of Jews.

Who were these people, I wondered, who could see their neighbors, even their friends, and their friend’s children, being dragged from their homes and stuffed into cattle cars, to be taken to their deaths?

What kind of people could step aside and watch such terrible human suffering, and do nothing but invent excuses for it?

And what of the police, and the soldiers, and the concentration camp guards, who implemented this shameful act. Didn’t they have wives and children? How was it that they had no empathy, no compassion?

Were those people an aberration,  a strange group of inhuman humans who just happened all to be gathered in Germany and Poland and Austria and the rest of collaborating Europe?

Perhaps, one could say the people didn’t object because they feared for their own lives, and for some that may have been true.

But for most, it was the anti-semitism ironically taught in their Christian churches — the churches of Jesus the Jew — that made the Holocaust acceptable to the mainstream.

The churches taught believers to hate Jews, and Hitler tapped into that latent hatred.

Hatred always justifies immorality. Hatred justifies everything.

I wondered, “Who were these haters,” and now I have my answer because I see the same people here in America.

I see the cowardly politicians, and their leader, Donald Trump, tapping into that hatred, and I see the American people who support his hatred, even without fear for their lives.

Image result for trump crowd
As I look upon all your beautiful white faces . . .

These are people who have been taught to hate non-whites, and especially to hate non-white foreigners.

Children are not born to hate. They must be taught.

And once taught, there is no limit to what their hatred will justify.

There was a time when I thought Trump’s compulsive lying would lose him followers, but I was wrong. His followers do not care that he lies to them.

Hatred has proven stronger than truth.

There was a time when I thought Trump’s compulsive immorality would be rejected by the so-called “religious” right, but hatred has proven stronger than decency.

There was a time when I thought Trump’s laziness, greed, position reversals, megalomania, and incompetence would cost him votes, but hatred has proven stronger than reality.

And most recently, I thought that Trump’s mistreatment of children would, at last, be scorned by his followers, but hatred seems to be proving stronger than human compassion.

In Trump-land, virtue is derided as weakness, when the reality is, it takes strength to be compassionate. The fearfulness of the weak is revealed by their cruelty.

Hatred, blind irrational hatred, is the most enduring emotion of cowards.

The Trump credo: For the treatment of a non-white foreigner, who seeks sanctuary in America, there is no punishment sufficiently cruel.

Simply deporting them, cold-blooded as that is, is not cruel enough in the minds of haters.

No, their children must be ripped from them, some under the pretext that the children will be given a shower (as Hitler did in Auschwitz).

And even that is not cruel enough.

The terrified children, some sick with contagious diseases, must secretly be packed together on planes and stuffed on buses, then sneaked in the middle of the night to distant locations, where no one can find them.

And even that is not cruel enough.

When they arrive, their attendants are instructed not to hug the frightened infants, who so desperately need reassurance and love. The children are instructed they must not talk to anyone, lest they never see their parents again.

And even that is not cruel enough.

I see the GOP, the party of law and order, justifying these outrages against people and their children who only seek shelter from the storm: “They broke the law.”

Law, without compassion, is tyranny.

I see Breitbart, the excuse-maker for the worst of the GOP, demonstrate their lack of human compassion.

They deceitfully refer to people concerned about what is being done to children and families as “Open border activists,” as though being human means one does not want any border security.

I see Donald Trump demonstrate his hatred for not only non-white immigrants, but also for the “due process” provisions of the U.S. Constitution, when he says,  “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.”

And when I see millions of Americans agreeing with Trump’s nativism and bigotry, I no longer am mystified about Europe’s experiences with hatred and tyranny.

Now even our right-wing Supreme Court has approved a ban on people from Muslim nations, another conservative decision that will live in infamy.

Just as Hitler told his followers they are the “master race,” Trump told his followers, “You’re the super elites.” Like Hitler’s followers before them, Trump’s followers screamed in joy at being allowed into his select society, while disallowing all others.

I see our once brave, welcoming nation now being turned into a cringing, cowardly disgrace, fearfully hiding behind a Wall — a Wall that never can be high enough or long enough — selfishly rejecting those who are beset, who beg only to have a chance at life.

America is a huge lifeboat, 330 million strong, and we have plenty of room for millions more. We, as Americans, must not be led to spur the drowning men, women, and children, who ask for our help and compassion in their time of peril.

Shame on those of us who would reject the unfortunate immigrants, whose lives we easily could save.

Trump is Trump, almost a caricature of the greedy, scheming, egomaniacal, banana republic dictator. History has seen the like of him. His legacy will be shame — for him and for America.

And any nation will have a certain number of people who will follow a cult leader, a bigot, a martinet. These people have inferiority needs that can be met only by stomping on others.

But we must pray there are enough moral, compassionate Americans who have strength of character, and who, in future elections, will undo the vast harm befalling our nation.

Law without compassion is tyranny.

America now has fallen from grace and succumbed to weakness. But if you vote your conscience, we will become strong, again.

VOTE.