Every day you hear and read the false belief that the federal deficit and debt are “unsustainable” and should be reduced. You hear and read the false belief that federal deficit spending causes inflation.

What you don’t hear is the terrible cost of reducing the deficit and debt. Here are just three examples of how each day, America is diminished — how each day we lose a bit of our greatness.

New York Times
Student Loan Interest Rates Loom as Political Battle
By Tamar Lewin

President Obama begins an all-out push on Friday to get Congress to extend the low interest rate on federal student loans, White House officials said, an effort that is likely to become a heated battle along party lines. If Congress fails to act, the interest rate on the loans, which are taken out by nearly eight million students each year, will double on July 1, to 6.8 percent.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a one-year freeze on the interest rate for subsidized Stafford loans would cost $6 billion.

What does it cost America if just one brilliant child is financially unable to attend college? No one knows, of course. But imagine if a hundred thousand of our best and our brightest are forced into menial jobs, especially in this increasingly high-tech world where brains win against brawn. As our factory workers are replaced by machines, and our machines are replaced by artificial intelligence, where will our former greatness be a decade from now?

What will we lose? A physicist who would have led us to the stars? An artist? A great political leader? A great legal mind who will improve our Supreme Court? Will we lose the next Jonas Salk, who saved millions of children from a crippling death?

The answer is “yes,” we will lose those people and thousands of others like them, who might have built America.

Chicago Tribune
Lawmakers skeptical of Quinn Medicaid cuts, $1 tax on cigarette packs
By Ray Long, Monique Garcia and Alissa Groeninger, Chicago Tribune reporters, April 20, 2012

SPRINGFIELD— — Gov. Pat Quinn challenged lawmakers Thursday to approve a $1-a-pack increase in the cigarette tax and accept major cuts in the state’s health care program for the poor, but many Democrats and Republicans view the plan as more a work in progress than a final deal.

Among Quinn’s suggested cuts are eliminating a discount prescription program for seniors and people with disabilities as well as removing thousands of patients from Medicaid by scaling back who is eligible. The governor also called for getting rid of dental and chiropractic care for adults and limiting what the state would cover for people with HIV and cancer.

Los Angeles Times
Survey shows holes in health insurance coverage
April 19, 2012|By Noam N. Levey

WASHINGTON — With the future of the healthcare law emerging as a major campaign issue this fall, a new survey has found that more than a quarter of adults ages 19 to 64 in the United States lacked health insurance for at least some time in 2011.

And the vast majority of those people – nearly 70 percent – had been without coverage for more than a year, according to the study by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, a leading authority on health policy.

Here is a nation that claims greatness, but because of a false idea, will refuse to aid the poor and the sick. The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, can and should provide Medicare to every man, woman and child in America. Yet, in health care, our “great” nation lags most other civilized nations in the world.

NASA budget might have less space for JPL’s planetary science
President Obama’s $17.7-billion budget request for NASA for the 2013 fiscal year includes a $300-million cut to planetary science, the very work JPL specializes in. It’s a dark development in an otherwise heady time.
March 31, 2012|By Scott Gold, Los Angeles Times

At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, tucked into the hills above Los Angeles, these are heady days: The robot dubbed Curiosity is hurtling toward Mars and is expected to put scientists on their strongest footing yet to determine whether the Red Planet is or ever has been hospitable to life. More than 1,000 of JPL’s scientists, engineers and technicians — a full fifth of the lab’s workforce — have put in time on the mission.

Kepler has discovered more than 2,300 planetary “candidates,” said William Borucki, Kepler’s principal investigator at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Northern California. Scientists believe the telescope could also produce an explosion in the understanding of stars. “We need a longer mission to do the job,” Borucki said.

Scientists are concerned about a significant “brain drain” at JPL in coming years if the La Cañada Flintridge lab’s planetary missions are curtailed, particularly among its sterling roster of Mars specialists.

We were proud, justifiably so, when we became the first, and still the only, nation to land men on the moon. We were people of courage then, with a leader of courage. Today, we have become a cowardly, cringing nation, afraid of everything — foreigners, the government, deficits, gays, people whose skin is a different color, the rich, the poor.

We allow ourselves to be led by those who call themselves religious patriots, but who neither are religious nor patriotic. So we elect those who have no greatness in them. We would rather do without than dare. Once we thought of ourselves as John Wayne, but we have become Barney Fife — a mean Barney Fife.

I saw the rise of America. I probably will not live to see the fall. But I feel for our grandchildren. They are the ones we punish, today.

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

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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Here are excerpts from a 4/24/12, Chicago Tribune editorial titled, “Profiles in Failure.”

As Democrats and Republicans in Washington perpetually trade blame for our deteriorating federal finances, the Supreme Court has moved three years closer to emptying its trust fund. Mark that on your calendar for 2033, not the 2036 proclaimed only a year ago.

Congress also is on life support. The legislative branch is expected to spend its last dollar in 2024. That’s . . . five years sooner than . . . projected as recently as 2010.

A year ago, trustees warned that the White House and also the military would be out of money by 2018. As of Monday, that date is 2016.

Shocking, isn’t it. Four federal agencies — the Supreme Court, Congress, the White House and the Military, all doomed to run out of money within the near future. Doesn’t seem possible, especially considering that the U.S. government has the unlimited ability to create dollars, and never, ever, ever can be unable to pay any bills of any size.

So how can agencies of the federal government run out of money?

Well, they can’t. No agency of the federal government can run out of money unless the government wills it. Confession: I modified the Tribune’s editorial. It really reads:

As Democrats and Republicans in Washington perpetually trade blame for our deteriorating federal finances, Social Security has moved three years closer to emptying its trust fund. Mark that on your calendar for 2033, not the 2036 proclaimed only a year ago.

Medicare also is on life support. The hospital insurance program for seniors is expected to spend its last dollar in 2024. That’s . . . five years sooner than . . . projected as recently as 2010.

A year ago, trustees warned that Social Security’s disability insurance fund would be out of money by 2018. As of Monday, that date is 2016.

The point is: The Supreme Court, Congress, the White House, the Military, Social Security and Medicare all are agencies of the federal government. None can be unable to pay their bills, unless Congress willfully cuts payments. All federal agencies’s bills are paid by the Treasury.

The Supreme Court, Congress, the White House, the Military do not have a special FICA-like tax to support them. They have no special tax at all. Yet miraculously, they do not go bankrupt. How can this be? No income; lots of bills to pay; and still they survive, year after year. How do they do it?

Simple. Taxes do not pay for federal spending. Unlike you and me, unlike state and local governments, unlike businesses, our Monetarily Sovereign federal government does not need a source of dollars with which to pay its bills.

I receive Social Security benefits. On the 4th Wednesday of every month, the number in my checking account suddenly is a couple thousand higher than it was the day before. How? The U.S. Treasury sent instructions (not dollars) to my bank, to raise the number in my account. My bank did as instructed and voila, my checking account is higher.

That is exactly the same way the federal government pays all of the bills for the Supreme Court, Congress, the White House, the Military and Medicare. It just sends instructions to increase numbers in accounts — which it can do endlessly.

If I sent a legitimate invoice to the federal government for $100 trillion, the government would instruct my bank to raise the number in my checking account by 100 trillion, and my bank would obey. Literally speaking, the government would not have sent me a hundred trillion dollars. It would have instructed my bank to increase the numbers in my account by a hundred trillion.

Again, literally speaking, my checking account does not and would not “contain” any dollars at all. It merely would show an accounting balance that reads 100,000,000,000,000.

Even though my account at my bank supposedly contained $100 trillion, my bank could not show me those hundred trillion dollars. They could assure me the dollars are in my account, and they could show me statements to that effect, but they could not show me the dollars that supposedly are in my account. In fact, they couldn’t show me any dollars at all. Dollars are invisible, non-physical accounting notations.

The point is, my revised version of the Tribune editorial, and the Tribune editorial itself, both are total bullsh*t. The only way the federal government could run short of dollars is for mathematics to run short of numbers. That’s all dollars are: Numbers in accounts.

The Social Security and Medicare “crises” are monstrous lies. They are inventions that do nothing but increase the income gap between the 1% and the 99%, by cutting payments to the 99%.

If Congress wished it, tomorrow the Treasury could add several trillion to the numbers in the Social Security and Medicare “trust funds,” simply by instructing changes in accounting balances. Why does the Tribune, along with virtually all other media, not understand this basic truth?

I don’t know. Bruce Dold, the Editorial Page Editor, and I have corresponded many times. He keeps thanking me (politely) for my information, then publishes yet another, amazingly wrong-headed editorial.

One thing Bruce refuses to do is justify his position with facts. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t tell me why I’m wrong. He just thanks me. Sometimes he tells me he’s looked into it, and hasn’t changed his opinion. But always, politely.

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

==========================================================================================================================================
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

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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A bunch of Secret Service agents had a wild time in Columbia, drinking and whoring. This has come as a great shock to many and has greatly embarrassed the President.

We like to think of the Secret Service as a group of ultra-efficient robots in dark sunglasses, who stand with their backs to the President and other officials, gazing tirelessly out into a crowd. They know everything; they see everything; they hear everything. And all are ready to flop onto the proverbial hand grenade to prevent injury to their charge.

Well, I have some news for you. Every military or pseudo military organization — every organization of any kind — is made up of (can you believe it?) PEOPLE! And people tend to act like people.

No matter how thorough the training and supervision, people are not machines. They have personal needs. They have emotions. Some have families and some don’t. Some are young, with hormones flowing through them. Some are older, and get sleepy early. Some of us are smarter than others, some braver, some stronger. Each day, we awaken as a slightly different person from the one who went to bed, the night before.

Yes, getting wild in a foreign country, when they’re part of a detail that is supposed to guard a President, is stupid. It could have made them subject to blackmail, which could have compromised the mission. It must be punished.

But this I guarantee: It’s not the first such incident and it won’t be the last. The FBI has had its embarrassments. So has the CIA. So has virtually every police department in America. And don’t get me started on political organizations.

Yes, punish the fools, and punish their supervisors, to set a deterrent, but don’t be shocked, shocked shocked. And Mr. President, forget the embarrassment. People are imperfect.

When you, Mr. President decide to visit a place — especially a dangerous place — you’re stretching the limits of what can be expected from people. I know you politicians love to “press the flesh,” and you feel that seeing your beautiful face can turn the international tide. But in fact, all the real work is done in advance of your visit, and have you never heard of a videophone?

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

==========================================================================================================================================
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