You can read the entire article by clicking the above link, but here are excerpts to give you the essence. Can you guess what crucial data is missing from the report?
The federal budget deficit has exploded under Biden’s watch, and he can no longer pretend otherwise.ERIC BOEHM | 7.19.2023
At times last summer, it seemed like the only thing President Joe Biden wanted to talk about was the federal budget deficit.
“We’re on track to cut the federal deficit by another $1.5 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. The biggest decline ever in a single year, ever, in American history,” Biden claimed during a May 2022 press conference.
Later that same month, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed touting his economic program, Biden wrote that the deficit would fall by $1.7 trillion and repeated the “largest reduction in history”claim. That talking point was still getting heavy rotation in September when the president bragged on 60 Minutes about his deficit-cutting powers.
Of course, as Reason (and other outlets) clarified, the falling deficit was not the result of anything the president had done. There had been an unprecedented amount of federal spending in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that spending drove the budget deficit to record highs: over $3.1 trillion in 2020 and more than $2.7 trillion in 2021.
As the pandemic passed and federal spending returned to more normal levels, so did the annual budget deficit. (In fact, the deficit would have fallen further last year if not for Biden’s policies, thanks to things like the infrastructure bill and last year’s federal budget.)
The CBO projects that the deficit will ring in around $1.5 trillion when the current fiscal year wraps up on September 30.
Funny that Biden doesn’t want to talk about that.
It’s less funny that he’s also ignoring the trajectory of the federal deficit in future years. Rather than shrinking, the gap between federal revenue and federal spending is on course to widen dramatically in the coming decades.
Wow, the federal budget deficit must awful for the economy. Here is what Eric Boehm, the Libertarians, and the Congressional Budget Office claim:
That means the federal government will have to take on more debt. The rising cost of that debt will “slow economic growth, drive up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, elevate the risk of a fiscal crisis, increase the likelihood of other adverse effects that could occur more gradually, and make the nation’s fiscal position more vulnerable to an increase in interest rates,” the CBO warned last month.
That’s quite a claim. Have you figured out what’s missing?
Data. There is no data. Just assumptions.
Let’s examine those assumptions: Will federal deficit spending “slow economic growth”?
The term “economic growth” means Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. The formula for GDP is GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending +Net Exports.
Look at that formula and explain to me the mechanism by which federal deficit spending will “slow economic growth.”
Unless you believe there is some magic way in which increased taxes can increase economic growth, there is no mechanism by which increased federal deficit spending can “slow economic growth.”
Federal deficit spending and GDP have risen since 1945
Will increased federal deficit spending “drive up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt.” Yes, of course, it will. But is that supposed to be a problem?
Being uniquely Monetarily Sovereign, the federal government has infinite dollars. It pays all its dollar-denominated debts simply by pressing computer keys. No tax dollars are involved.
And despite the massive increase in deficits, the government never has and never will run short of dollars to pay interest.
Further, the federal government has absolute control over interest rates. The Fed sets rates arbitrarily to combat inflation, not to sell T-bonds.
The federal government has no need to sell any debt. It could stop offering T-securities tomorrow, and that would not affect the government’s ability to spend.
The sole purpose of T-securities is to provide a safe place to store unused dollars, which helps stabilize the dollar, not to provide spending money to the federal government/
(This is different from state/local government taxes, which do provide spending money to state/local governments.)
Will increased federal deficit spending “elevate the risk of a fiscal crisis”? What fiscal crisis? Unlike you and me. The government can’t run short of dollars.
Liars love to use general language without data backup.
Will increased federal deficit spending “increase the likelihood of other adverse effects that could occur more gradually, and make the nation’s fiscal position more vulnerable to an increase in interest rates”? What adverse effects?
The CBO Libertarians never say because there are none.
And what do they mean by the nation’s “fiscal position being vulnerable”? Again, they never say.
The warning is one big fat load of generalized poppycock, a vast word salad with zero meaning.
Why do they embarrass themselves by spewing such nonsense? Here’s one reason, probably the main reason:
Biden successfully blocked a House Republican attempt to impose stricter spending caps as part of that deal and refused to include entitlement spending—the real driver of long-term deficit growth—in the negotiations.
Ah, yes. The “real driver” of deficit growth is entitlement spending, aka Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, and other “welfare” programs — all benefits to the middle- and lower-income groups.
Why do the Libertarians and the Republicans want to cut those programs? Why do they spread the nonsense that, somehow, the federal government can’t afford them, when the federal government can afford any payment denominated in U.S. dollars?
Statement from the St. Louis Fed: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.”
Get it? “Not dependent on credit markets. That’s Fed-speak meaning the government does not need to borrow, and in fact, does not borrow. It creates all the dollars it needs by pressing computer keys.
The reason has to do with Gap Psychology. The logic goes like this:
“Rich” is a comparison, not an absolute. If you had $1,000, you would be rich if everyone else had $10, but you would be poor if everyone else had $10,000.
To become more affluent, you must widen the Gap between you and those who have less while narrowing the Gap between you and those who have more.
You can widen the Gap in two ways: Get more for yourself or make sure those below you have less.
The rich, who run America, get richer by widening the Gap below them. This includes spreading the false tale that Social Security, Medicare, etc., must be cut. They spread the tale by bribing three influencers:
The media, bribed by advertising dollars and media ownership
The politicians, bribed by campaign contributions and promises of future employment
The economists, bribed by university contributions and lucrative jobs in “think tanks.”
Thus, the Big Lie (federal finances resemble personal and state/local government finances) is disseminated.
The public is led to believe their federal tax dollars fund federal spending. They don’t. The purpose of federal (as opposed to state/local) taxes is to control the economy by taxing what the federal government wishes to discourage and giving tax breaks to what the government wishes to help.
Additionally, federal taxes can help increase demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring taxes to be paid in dollars.
So, the entire article is based on lies. That is why it contains no historical data.
These general claims seem logical to the public because the claims apply to monetarily non-sovereign entities, not the Monetarily Sovereign U.S. government.
You never will see this graph presented by any Libertarian or Republican:
Before recessions (vertical gray bars), federal deficit growth declines, then increases to cure the recessions.
Note to politicians, media writers, and right-wing economists, you’ve done a great job lying to the public on behalf of the rich. You have helped make the rich richer. Congratulations.
One day, soon (I hope), the public will catch on to your lies.
At that time, the people will demand, vote for, and receive such benefits as Free Medicare, expanded Social Security, affordable food and housing, and free college education.
The rich already receive those benefits, courtesy of “friendly” tax laws.
The rest of the population soon will catch on to the fact that the federal government can supply all the benefits the rich receive, while collecting zero taxes.
The public just needs to see that they have been lied to.
Are you a Republican or a Democrat? Or something else? Stop a moment and ask yourself, Why?
Are you what you are because it’s a family tradition? Or are there specific issues that move you? Interestingly, the nation seems almost evenly split between the two major parties, while the differences are profound.
My family historically voted Democrat, primarily because of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He created Social Security and maneuvered us out of the Great Recession (though by getting us into the Great War II).
His communication skills and the morals and strength of his wife, Eleanor, contributed to his aura of greatness.
After Harry S. Truman left office, and until perhaps a dozen years ago, I tended to vote Republican, possibly because I come from Chicago, where the Daleys (father and son) were so profoundly crooked. They were Democrats who ran the criminal Democrat machine.
More recently, because of Lyndon Johnson, who, if not for Viet Nam would be considered one of our greatest Presidents, I have leaned toward the Democrats. This is based on the issues.
Here are the issues as I see them:
I. Donald Trump: He is the uncontested winner of the “worst President” competition. He is a psychopath, which seems to be an infectious disease. His sickness has infected every aspect of American life.
Here is a list of Trump’s symptoms from the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. Glibness. Superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, need for stimulation, proneness to boredom, pathological lying, conning/manipulation, lack of remorse, lack of guilt, shallow emotions (emotions felt in superficial and fleeting ways), callousness, lack of empathy, parasitic lifestyle, promiscuous sexual behavior, early behavior problems, lack of realistic, long-term goals, impulsivity, failure to accept responsibility, many short-term marital relationships, juvenile delinquency, and criminal versatility.
Trump has all 20 of those symptoms. You can see the symptoms explained here.
The abject failure of the Republican party to recognize and deal with, rather than to defend this man’s actions and ravings, is the most crucial issue entering the next Presidential election.
Trump’s traitorous criminality came close to destroying American democracy, and the flag-waving GOP’s refusal to acknowledge it epitomizes the worst political party in recent memory.
II. Quality of people: In addition to Trump, the right-wing has assembled an astounding group of lying, bigoted, fence-straddling hate-mongering ignoramusesto represent conservatism. Think of the low-quality of such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, Mitch McConnell, Kristi Noem, Rick Scott, Ron Johnson, Lauren Boehbert, Lindsey Graham, Brian Mast, Jim Jordan, Kevin McCarthy, Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, Paul Gosar, Andrew Clyde,
We continue with Breitbart, Newsmax, Fox News, and such lying rogues as Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Jeanine Pirro, and Maria Bartiromo.
We also should include Dinesh D’Souza, Ben Shapiro, Stephen Miller, Mike Lindell, Michael Flynn, QAnon, and Steve Bannon.
And it’s only fitting that we end with Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, and Neil Gorsuch.
III. The election: Before the election, Trump already had planned to say the election was stolen if he lost. So he did.
Despite approximately 50 lawsuits, many in front of Republican-appointed judges, all of which determined the election was not stolen, Trump continues to make the same ridiculous claim.
The Republican Party had two options. It could have agreed with the facts and, for the sake of democracy, moved on. Or it could have adopted and disseminated Trump’s Big Lie.
The GOP chose the latter in a wondrous display of cowardice and dishonesty. That solidified the GOP’s strong consideration for the “Worst Political Party in American History” award.
IV. The Clarence Thomas Saga: Speaking of the “worst in history,” the Supreme Court’s current iconoclastic leader, Clarence Thomas, certainly competes for the title.
“Uncle Tom” Thomas has spent his later years trying to demonstrate that he is not black. He disclaims his blackness aided him in any way, including the affirmative action laws that helped him get into Yale law school. He later denied that the degree he received there helped him.
He voted to overturn a rule that forbids prosecutors from using race as a factor in making peremptory challenges in jury selection, thus pleasing white bigots everywhere.
His nomination by President Bush to replace Thurgood Marshall, the only black on the Supreme Court, was aided by his being black.
The ABA rated Thomas as qualified, with one of the lowest levels of support for a Supreme Court nominee. Thomas’s record includes voting against affirmative action and abortion.
His wife is a QAnon white supremacist, while Thomas refuses to recuse from cases involving that way of thinking, improbably claiming he never discusses cases with her.
Thomas makes decisions based on “originalism and textualism” when it suits his right-wing biases. He ironically denies the existence of the first 13 words of the 2nd Amendment and gives AR-15 rights based on founders who had never heard of an AR-15.
Although, during his confirmation hearings, Thomas claimed, ” “Stare decisis (precedent) provides continuity to our system, it provides predictability, and in our process of case-by-case decision making, I think it is a fundamental and critical concept.“
Nevertheless he proved to be a con artist (Anital Hill and others have testified to that, under oath) because he has voted to overturn precedent more often than any other Justice.
That includes voting to overturn the 50-year precedent of Roe v Wade.
Crooked Clarence’s accepting of massive gifts from litigants before the Court, under the “I didn’t know it was wrong,” demonstrates a contrived ignorance beyond belief for a judge in the nation’s highest court.
And have we mentioned Samuel Alito, who equals Thomas in personal duplicity but now has exceeded him in reverence for the rich?
V. The Supreme Court: It is a Court that follows the conservative opinion that a) if a law benefits the masses, and b) the Constitution doesn’t explicitly spell it out, get find a way to get rid of it, preferably by convoluted illogic.
(a) Abortion: This procedure always is available to the rich, who easily can travel to any city, state, or even country that allows it. The poor cannot.
Abortion benefits the poor, who cannot afford another mouth to feed. It also helps those who can’t afford the best health care that would tend to the health risks of difficult or dangerous pregnancies.
Thus, the local availability of abortion helps widen the Gap between the rich and the poor and functionally makes the rich richer. As Gap Psychology reveals, widening the Gap is the only way the rich can become more affluent.
(b) Guns: Ignoring the first 13 words of the 2nd Amendment (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”) upon which America’s gun/death epidemic exists, the self-defined “originalist” Court ignores the original intent of the framers.
The right-wing explicitly ignores the words “well-regulated” and the word “militia” while missing the original meaning of the word “arms.”
Remember that AK-47s, AR-15s, and large magazines for bullets, even bullets themselves, were unknown when writing the Constitution. Blunderbusses and bayonets were the “arms” mentioned in the 2nd Amendment. Honesty demands that originalists would not accept modern weapons. But this Supreme Court lacks honesty.
The conservatives also ignore the original purpose of the 2nd Amendment:
(The Constitution’s) most influential framer was James Madison. In Federalist No. 46, Madison wrote how the militia could keep a federal army in check: “A standing army… would be opposed [by] militia.”
He argued that State governments “would be able to repel the danger” of a federal army, “It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.”
He contrasted the federal government of the United States to the European kingdoms, which he described as “afraid to trust the people with arms”, and assured that “the existence of subordinate governments… forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition”.
Thus, for the education of the Court’s phony “originalists,” the fundamental purpose of the 14th Amendment was for a well-regulated militia to keep the federal army in check.
Today, there is no militia, well-regulated or otherwise, and in any event, such a militia no longer could keep the U.S. military in check. And original “arms” do not include today’s current weapons.
Finally, high-powered rifles with large magazines are not good self-defense weapons but are more appropriate for mowing down large groups of people, as they have been doing with increasing regularity.
The conservative Court’s reasonings logically could apply to the individual ownership of machine guns, bazookas, hand grenades, and even poison gas, all of which have the same relevance to the original meaning of the 2nd Amendment’s “arms” as do AR-15s and AK-47s
(C)Money in politics The constitution does not mention that a well-financed candidate has an advantage over an equally qualified but less financed opponent.
As always, the conservatives take the side of the rich and equate spending money with free speech. Thus a conservative Court gave us Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which says that money is speech, and since the rich have more money, they have more right to more speech than the poor.
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
“Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee – I’m in Los Angeles, and it’s freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!”
“This winter is brutal. . . .Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by scientists [who] are having a lot of fun.”
“Any and all weather events are used by the GLOBAL WARMING HOAXSTERS to justify higher taxes to save our planet! They don’t believe it $$$$!”
“When I hear Obama saying climate change is the No. 1 problem, it is just madness.”
After Trump denied repeatedly saying climate change is a hoax, Kellyanne Conway clarified his position: “He has said that he believes [climate change] is naturally occurring and is not all man-made.”
Virtually every accredited climate scientist disagrees with Trump and Kellyanne. Human-made carbon dioxide is warming the world, which will lead to an existential disaster. The GOP will be known as the party that helped destroy humankind and the rest of the living world.
Trump selected Scott Pruit to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, the same Scott Pruitt who repeatedly sued the agency to prevent it from doing its job. It was like selecting the proverbial fox to guard the henhouse.
Finally, as with all things the GOP favors, global warming adversely affects the poor more than the rich. In addition to the rich having better air conditioning, the “heat island” effect in areas where parklands don’t exist is significantly more significant than the heating in more wide-open floral spaces common to estates.
VII. Guns: The GOP, the party of the rich, favors massive gun ownership for one crucial reason and perhaps several less critical ones.
Who is being killed by guns, the rich or the poor? The answer is clear. Widespread, easy access to firearms is killing and maiming the poor and middle classes, leaving the rich relatively unscathed. This death by violence widens the income, wealth, and power Gap between the rich and the rest.
Gap Psychologydictates that the only way the rich can become more prosperous is to widen the Gap between them and those below them. This is accomplished by gaining more for themselves and ensuring those below lose more.
Gun killings have shattered many poorer neighborhoods and lives, thus widening the Gap.
The rich have guns to protect themselves from the poor. The poor have guns to protect themselves from their neighbors.
VIII. Federal Benefits: The primary benefits for the middle and the poor are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, “Obamacare,” and the various anti-poverty initiatives — school lunch programs, the Child Tax Credit, The American Rescue Plan, etc., all of which are resisted by the GOP.
By contrast, the GOP has favored increased deductions for charitable donations, business expenses for personal benefit, tax-loss manipulations (which is how Trump managed to pay virtually no taxes for ten years), lower tax rates on capital gains, and numerous tax laws that allow the wealthiest Americans to pay no taxes at all.
Meanwhile, the GOP falsely claims the benefits paid to middle-class and poor Americans are running short of dollars and need to be cut. That is why you’ve seen all the crocodile tears regarding Social Security, Medicare, etc., running short of money. It’s a lie fostered by the rich.
The term “DREAMer” refers to young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children who have lived and gone to school here and often identify as American.
They are protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which is not designed as a path to permanent residency or citizenship. The recipients of DACA are young people who have grown up as Americans, identify themselves as Americans, and many speak only English and have no memory of or connection with the country where they were born.
Under current immigration law, most of these young people had no way to gain legal residency even though they had lived in the U.S. most of their lives.
Many Dreamers say they didn’t know they were unauthorized immigrants until they were teenagers, often when they discovered they couldn’t join their peers in getting a driver’s license or filling out financial aid forms for college because they didn’t have Social Security numbers.
The xenophobic, anti-poor, pro-rich GOP opposes citizenship for dreamers.
X. Gays: The GOP spreads the false narrative that being gay is evil, and being exposed to gay people somehow taints straight children and encourages them to “decide” to be gay. The GOP accuses gay people of “grooming” straight people to be gay.
Being straight, gay, or bisexual is not something a person can choose or change. People don’t choose their sexual orientation any more than they choose their height or eye color. It is estimated that about 10% of people are gay.
Gay people are represented in all walks of life, across all nationalities, ethnic backgrounds, and in all social and economic groups.
No one fully understands what determines a person’s sexual orientation, but various biological and genetic factors likely explain it.
Medical experts and organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Psychological Association (APA) view sexual orientation as part of someone’s nature.
Being gay is also not considered a mental disorder or abnormality.
The GOP’s anti-gay posture is no more defensible as an anti-black or anti-tall belief. It is ignorant bigotry, pure and simple.
XI. “Woke”: The GOP is anti-“Woke,” which has become a cornerstone of Ron DeSantis’s Presidential aspirations.
Although most Republicans claim to hate “woke,” most have no idea what it is. Their hatred begins with their ignorance.
From Wikipedia: Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English, meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.”Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism.
The GOP denies racial prejudice, discrimination, and social inequalities such as sexism exist and if they exist, they are meaningless, or their discussion is harmful.
Denying that social inequalities exist and refusing to warn our children about them grooms children to be haters and perpetuates the bigotry that still curses America. Sadly, that’s the GOP’s whole purpose.
By training children to be tomorrow’s bigots, today’s bigots retain control over society. Their fears and hatreds are shared. The notion that a black or gay or Jew might enter the neighborhood is an anathema to the insular right wing.
Denying the past is how never to learn from it, and is the method of the dictator.
Remember that the GOP criticized the left wing for its supposed “cancel culture.” But the Republicans have taken cancel culture to a new high in American history.
Among the books that have been banned by Republican censors are: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger; The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck; To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee; The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, Ulysses, by James Joyce, Beloved, by Toni Morrison, The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, 1984, by George Orwell, Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, Animal Farm, by George Orwell and many others.
Generally, a book is banned because a parent doesn’t want their child to read it. The parent harbors the false belief that if children don’t see swearing or pornography or read about communism, socialism, nazism, liberalism, and other “isms,” their little minds won’t be contaminated as they grow up.
The opposite is true. Understanding the sin, rather than experiencing it from their ignoble peers, can prevent absorbing the sin.
The GOP, notably Gov. Ron DeSantis, banned books that are “woke.” Teachers even are fired for talking about “woke.” The GOP wrongly believes ignorance is a good sin preventative.
Even the bible was smarter than that, for the bible explained sin in excruciating detail, while explaining why it was wrong.
XIII COVID: It has become a Trump/GOP loyalty test to deny the seriousness of COVID and the usefulness of anti-covid vaccines and masks.
Trump continued to claim COVID would “just go away” into 2020, when he caught the disease and was treated at Walter Reed Hospital in October 2020.
He received the COVID vaccination and other treatments and was released on October 10, 2020.
He said, “I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good!
“Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge.”
Amazingly, even knowing firsthand the contagiousness of COVID, Trump continued to hold mass, maskless campaign events, at which hundreds of people caught COVID, many dying.
Here is how one man, Donald Trump, managed to kill three hundred thousand Americans. On a related note, the GOP votes the death penalty for killing one American.
More than three hundred thousand Americans diedbecause they refused to become vaccinated. They effectively committed suicide, possibly the largest suicide pact in world history.
Many more caught COVID because they refused to wear masks, though Trump was vaccinated and, for a short time, wore a mask.
XIX. Student Debt”: As you read this section, remember that the U.S. government is Monetarily Sovereign, meaning it never can run short of dollars. Even if the federal government collected $0 taxes, it could afford to spend forever.
Thus, there never is a reason to lend dollars. The federal government has no need for returned dollars.
In September 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement began. The protest against income inequality, the wealthy, and their financial institutions, led by activists “representing 99 percent of Americans,” soon led to the Occupy Student Debt Campaign, which directed its ire at the country’s skyrocketing tuition costs and debt-fueled higher education system.
When student debt surpassed $1 trillion in April 2012, the Debt Collective, a debtor union, called for abolishing all student debt and implementing free college.
Calls to abolish all student debt resurfaced amid myriad legal challenges representing victims of predatory for-profit colleges, catching the attention and support of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Packaging people with debt that schools knew or should have known would be unrepayable began to look predatory.
Only about half of borrowers were in repayment in 2019. A quarter — or more than 10 million people — were in delinquency or default, and the rest had applied for temporary relief for struggling borrowers, including deferments or forbearances.
The right-wing side of the Supreme Court ruled against President Joe Biden’s plan that would have forgiven up to $20,000 worth of student loan debt per borrower in a 6-3 decision1.
The majority opinion was delivered by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who voted against the student loan forgiveness plan. Conservative Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett voted with Roberts.
All earlier had pledged their reverence for precedent.
XX. Obamacare: The common name for the Affordable Care Act, is intended to make healthcare insurance more affordable for everyone by lowering costs for those who can’t afford them. The plan mandated that insurance companies include ten necessary benefits and paid the states to expand Medicaid coverage.
Twelve states rejected the plan; all GOP-dominated: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Their citizen continued to suffer from a lack of health care insurance. Before the ACA, insurance companies could exclude people with pre-existing conditions.
The GOP made several attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare.
The first attempt was in 2017 when Republicans tried to repeal and replace parts of Obamacare by spring. The House released an Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill called the American Health Care Act in March 20171. However, intraparty opposition quickly mounted, with some conservatives calling it “Obamacare 2.0.”
After winning control of the presidency, Senate, and House in the 2016 elections, Republicans attempted multiple times to repeal ACA but were unsuccessful.
XXI: Affirmativeaction is a policy or a set of procedures that aims to improve the educational or employment opportunities of certain demographic groups historically discriminated against or underrepresented in society.
It gives limited preference to qualified groups based on criteria such as race, gender, ethnic origin, disability, and age.
A 2013 Harvard study found that after affirmative action ended in critical states, “sharp declines” in the workplace followed for Asian women, Black women, and Hispanic men.
When the University of California system eliminated affirmative action in 1995, the number of Black and Latino students accepted by Berkeley and UCLA was cut by nearly half by 1998, the first year affected by the ban.
There is theory, and there is reality. The theory is that all people should be treated equally. The reality is that certain groups never have been treated equally, and this unequal treatment of young children impacts them throughout their lives.
Affirmative action is a later attempt to undo the effects of early unfair treatment.
The Supreme Court decided 6-3 and 6-2 that race-conscious admission policies of the University of North Carolina and Harvard College violate the Constitution, effectively ending affirmative action in higher education through a decision that will reverberate across campuses nationwide.
The rulings fell along ideological lines. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion for both cases, and Justice Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh wrote concurring opinions. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has ties to Harvard and recused herself in that case but wrote a dissent in the North Carolina case.
The ruling is the latest from the Supreme Court’s conservative majority that has upended decades of precedent, including overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022.
XXII. Conspiracy theories. No political party in history has been as enamored with idiotic conspiracy theories as has then GOP.
It begins with the obvious criminality of Donald Trump to which the Republican MAGAs haven blindfolded themselves. He spouts so many lies that to support him you first must turn off your brain and be amenable to accepting the latest idiocy, whether it agrees with, or contradicts the previous idiocy.
Here excerpts from a wonderful article the explains the mental coma in which Trump followers live.
In May, Rep. James Comer (rhymes with “coma”), R-Ky had admitted that his supposed “whistleblower” had gone missing.
(Earlier), Comer crowed that “the people on MSNBC who made fun of me when I said we had an informant” should “feel like fools right now,” because “a credible witness that the FBI flew all the way to Brussels to interview” was a-coming.
On Monday, the truth came out. Cormer’s supposed “informant,” Gal Luft, is not preparing his dramatic exposé of the Bidens. No, he’s actually on the run from the law, having been charged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) with illegal arms dealing and being a Chinese spy.
Of course, this egg on his face will not slow Comer down. Conspiracy theories are closed loop systems. When conflicting facts are presented, the conspiracist immediately declares not only are the facts fake, but the fakery is further “proof” of the conspiracy.
One could see this happening in real time the second the federal authorities announced the charges against Luft on Twitter.
MAGA diehards, declared with confidence that Luft is an innocent man being framed by the deep state. Not one of these people could pick Luft out of a lineup or could say anything about his life prior to this moment. Yet the invention of a new conspiracy theory about Luft’s arrest was not just automatic, it seemed as mindless as breathing.
It’s highly unlikely that either Comer or Mace believes their own B.S. Indeed, Comer joked earlier this year to New York Times reporters about how he is just making it up as he goes along.
“You know, the customer’s always right,” Mr. Comer said wryly, of his approach.
That’s the reason it’s so easy for not just Comer, but the entire GOP base, to reflexively roll up these charges into the ever-expanding conspiracy theory. Most of them don’t believe any of this crap.
Conspiracy theorists often contradict themselves in frankly comical ways:
As social psych researcher, Karen Douglas found that “the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered.” The more they “believed that Osama bin Laden was already dead when US special forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive.”
Throughout and since 2020, conspiracy theorists have said that Covid is at the same time a nonexistent hoax, a bug no more dangerous than the flu, and a deadly Chinese bioweapon. It didn’t matter to them that these things can’t be true at the same time.
For Comer and other MAGA Republicans, the actual belief is straightforward: They wish to destroy the legitimately elected president and replace him with Donald Trump, a wannabe fascist who attempted a coup.
With the Hunter Biden conspiracies, the most obvious aspect is that it’s impossible for anyone, even those who made it up, to follow what exactly is being alleged here.
According to a purported IRS whistleblower, U.S. Attorney David Weiss had been turned down when he requested special counsel status….
But now, Trump appointee Weiss, has stated unambiguously that none of these claims are true. He never requested to become special counsel and he was never blocked from bringing any charges or investigating aspects of the Hunter Biden case.
If you’re going cross-eyed trying to keep up, that’s the point of this ever-more-deranged GOP conspiracy theory: (make it impossible) to figure out what the hell Republicans are talking about in the first place.
This is all by design. If a conspiracy theory is easy to follow, it’s also easy to see its flaws. But if it’s so complicated that even efforts at straightforward debunking are bewildering, it’s hard to argue against it.
The vast majority of Trump’s crimes are simple enough to explain: Stealing classified documents. Tax fraud. Sexual assault. Attempting to steal an election. But the sheer number of Trump crimes is mind-boggling.
What the average Trump voter needs in order to justify themselves is a claim that “both sides” are corrupt. With so much Trump criminality to distract from, the lies about the Bidens need to be overwhelming.
Not that it’s a hard task to keep making crap up. After all, nothing Republicans say about Biden needs to make sense. It just needs to be noisy.
Sadly for the MAGA zombies, this all came to early, and will be forgotten by election time, so they will need to come up with even more brain-dead theories they can take with them to the polls.
I believe the Republican Party, in concert with its Supreme Court political hacks, has worked on the wrong side of every important issue facing America.
I believe that the GOP is a party of bigots, voting against those who are not born white-supremacist, Christian, Americans and who are not wealthy.
As befits such a party, it has appointed to the Supreme Court a cadre of political hacks who vote a false, lockstep, “originalism” (but only when it supports the conservative, white-supremacist view) and ignores the reality of the pain their vote will cause.
Despite billing itself as “the party of law and order” and the party of religion, the GOP, in my opinion, is overstocked with lawbreakers from its top to its bottom.
As the “party of religion,” the GOP talks the talk but does not walk the walk. What religion is so callous as to deny support for the poor and besieged minorities while bending the knee to the rich?
The religion supported by the GOP is the one with Donald Trump as its God, a belief that omits then denies the rights of all other religions, agnostics, or atheists.
I have been reading the Libertarian articles in Reason.com for several years and have noticed something odd. Despite ongoing claims that federal spending should be reduced, no data can support that myth.
Like all other debt Henny Pennys, they focus on telling you how big the so-called debt is and how much will be spent on benefits. OK, we get it. The numbers are significant, but why are they bad?
But there never is data. It is all speculation supported by more speculation.
The following article is no exception:
CBO Projects Huge Deficits, $116 Trillion in New Borrowing Over the Next 30 YearsA new Congressional Budget Office report warns of “significant economic and financial consequences” caused by the federal government’s reckless borrowing.Merely paying the interest costs on the accumulated national debt will require a staggering 35 percent of annual federal revenue by the end of that time frame. | 6.29.2023 11:00 AM
And what will those “significant economic consequences” be? And where is your evidence?
The federal government is on pace to borrow $116 trillion over the next 30 years, and merely paying the interest costs on the accumulated national debt will require a staggering 35 percent of annual federal revenue by the end of that time frame.
And that’s likely an optimistic scenario.
Actually, it is an optimistic scenario. Mathematically, the more the federal government spends, the more the economy grows. Why? Because the economy is measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and:
GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports
That $116 trillion in “borrowing” is not borrowing. It is the acceptance of deposits into Treasury Security accounts. The U.S. federal government never borrows dollars.
Why would it? The federal government has the infinite ability to create (aka “print”) dollars, so why would it ever need to borrow what it can create at no cost, especially since borrowing requires paying interest?
Alan Greenspan: “There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody. The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print the money to do that.”
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.”
Statement from the St. Louis Fed: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.”
Get it, Libertarians? The U.S. government is not dependent on credit markets. It doesn’t borrow.
Let me rephrase your comment: ” . . . merely paying the interest costs on the accumulated deposits into T-security accounts will require a staggering 35 percent of annual federal revenue by the end of that time frame.
Why is it “staggering” if Greenspan, Bernanke, and the St. Louis Fed say the government never can run out of dollars? Even if annual revenue totaled $0, the federal government could continue spending forever.
Those sobering figures were published Wednesday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as part of the number-crunching agency’s new long-term budget outlook.
The report once again points to an unsustainable fiscal trajectory driven by a federal government that’s addicted to borrowing—even as it becomes readily apparent that the bill is coming due.
It’s Libertarian nonsense. Why is it “unsustainable”? And since the government never borrows, what is the “addiction”? And exactly what bill is “coming due”?
The problem is Eric Boehm, and the rest of the Libertarians do not wish to acknowledge the fundamental difference between personal finance and federal finance.
In short, they don’t seem to understand the difference between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty. And not understanding those fundamental differences means they don’t understand economics. At all.
Are they being devious or simply ignorant? I don’t know. I vote for devious. In my opinion, they have an agenda and are just pretending to be ignorant.
“Such high and rising debt would have significant economic and financial consequences,” the CBO warns.
Among other things, the mountain of debt will “slow economic growth, drive up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, elevate the risk of a fiscal crisis, increase the likelihood of other adverse effects that could occur more gradually, and make the nation’s fiscal position more vulnerable to an increase in interest rates.”
In what way does federal deficit spending “slow economic growth” when Federal Spending increases GDP by simple algebraic formula?
As for interest payments, here’s the Libertarian theory: To acquire the dollars to pay its bills, the federal government needs to borrow. And because it needs to borrow so much, it has to raise interest rates to attract lenders.
Wrong. The government never needs to borrow and, indeed, never borrows. The Fed determines the interest it pays on Treasury Securities, not to attract lenders but to regulate the economy.
Example: Of late, interest on T-securities has gone up significantly, not because the Fed wants to attract more depositors, but because the Fed thinks that’s how to reduce inflation. Interest rates have nothing to do with the government needing dollars to pay its bills.
As for foreign holders of U.S. “debt,” that is a convenience for foreigners. The Fed doesn’t give a fig whether Russia or China deposits dollars into Treasury Bill accounts. The purpose of those accounts is not to give America it own dollars. The purpose is to provide the Russians, Chinese et al. a safe place to deposit unused dollars.
Further, what is the “fiscal crisis” the CBO worries about? The government always can pay its bills. If a creditor were to demand that the U.S. federal government pay $100 Trillion tomorrow, a functionary at the Federal Reserve would press a computer key, and the $100 Trillion instantly would be transferred to the creditor’s account.
The CBO’s erroneous claims end with: ” . . . increase the likelihood of other adverse effects that could occur more gradually, and make the nation’s fiscal position more vulnerable to an increase in interest rates.”
We don’t know what the “other adverse effects” supposedly are. We suspect the CBO has no idea, either.
Finally, the federal government’s fiscal position is invulnerable. It can pay any bill of any size at any time it chooses.
The formula for massive deficits and unsustainable levels of borrowing is actually pretty simple: federal spending that far exceeds what the government collects in tax revenue.
Because the federal government has the infinite ability to create U.S. dollars, it neither needs nor even uses tax revenue to pay its bills. So why does it collect taxes at all?
Three reasons:
To control the economy by taxing what it wishes to discourage and giving tax breaks to what it wishes to encourage.
To assure demand for the U.S. dollar and thus stabilize the dollar by requiring taxes to be paid in dollars.
To make the public believe federal spending is limited by taxes and reduce public requests for benefits
As for #3, the rich who run America do not want the non-rich to receive the benefits that would narrow the Gap between the rich and the rest. The Gap makes the rich rich; the wider the Gap, the richer they are.
Over the past 30 years, federal spending has averaged 21 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a rough measure of the size of the whole American economy, while tax revenue has averaged 17.2 percent, the CBO notes. That’s not great, but the future looks much worse.
By 2053, the CBO expects federal spending to grow to 29.1 percent of GDP while revenue climbs to just 19.1 percent.
From being exposed to the above table, you might be led to believe that Federal Spending/GDP or federal taxes/GDP are essential measures. They aren’t.
The first fraction tells you how much the federal government spends vs. the domestic private sector. What can you do with that information? Not much.
You might wish to increase private sector spending, probably requiring federal tax reduction, which is almost always a good idea. And you should increase exports which need federal aid to exporters, though that might run afoul of international agreements.
What you do not want to do is cut federal spending. That will only reduce GDP, which would only make it worse if you are concerned about the Federal Spending/GDP fraction.
As for the Federal Taxes/GDP fraction, the analysis is straightforward. The more significant the fraction, the worse will be economic growth. Sadly, the CBO complains that the fraction will be getting smaller — Federal Spending will grow faster than GDP — and here is the crucial part: GDP is projected to grow.
Even more importantly, real(inflation-adjusted) GDP has been growing per capita. That means despite all the moaning and groaning from the Libertarians and the CBO, Americans are getting richer. Here are the data:
Real Per Capita Gross Domestic Product
That, my friends, is a picture of a healthy economy — uh, except for this:
The GINI index shows the distribution of wealth. A level of “0” would mean everyone has the same wealth. A level of “1” would mean one person has all the wealth. The graph shows the rich getting more affluent than the rest of us, with only a small drop from 2019 to 2020.
Keep the GINI index in mind when you read about the Libertarians and the Republicans wanting to cut “Entitlements” (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid), school lunch programs, and other poverty aids.
The oft-quoted Federal Debt/GDP ratio is equally meaningless. It compares the amount deposited into T-security accounts by foreign nations, domestic companies, and Americans (aka “Federal Debt) vs. the amount spent by Americans and net imports.
This ratio often is cited as something to be concerned about. Yet it has no predictive or analytic value. A low ratio is neither a sign of a healthy nor sick economy. It is not a prediction of the future nor a measure of the past.
GDP doesn’t pay for Federal Debt, and Federal Debt doesn’t pay for GDP. Yet some so-called “economists” wring their hands when the ratio increases.
The only relationship between the two is when Federal Debt increases, which helps GDP increase, though all the bleating about this ratio would make you think otherwise.
Entitlements are the primary driver of that future spending surge. Social Security spending will rise from about 5 percent of GDP to about 6.2 percent over the next 30 years. Costs for Medicare and Medicaid will jump from 5.8 percent of GDP to 8.6 percent by 2053.
And there it is. The right-wing pitch is to reduce Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The purpose is to widen further the Gap between the rich and the rest.
Financing the national debt will become a major share of federal spending in the next few decades. The CBO projects that interest payments on the debt will cost $71 trillion over the next 30 years and consume more than one-third of all federal revenue by the 2050s.
As Greenspan, Bernanke, and the St. Louis Fed reminded us, it costs the U.S. government nothing to create those dollars; that dollar creation has been enriching Americans for decades.
“America’s fiscal outlook is more dangerous and daunting than ever, threatening our economy and the next generation,” Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which advocates for fiscal responsibility, said in a statement.
The group responded to the new CBO report by renewing its calls for a bipartisan fiscal commission to consider plans for stabilizing the debt.
To a rich guy like Michael A. Peterson, “fiscal responsibility” means soaking the poor and middle-income groups while giving tax breaks to the rich.
Stabilizing the debt” means creating recessions and depressions, during which the rich will buy all those low-priced assets to increase domination over the rest of us.
Here is precisely what happens when we “stabilize the debt” as rich Mr. Peterson wishes”
When federal “Debt” growth (red) declines (“Debt” is stabilized), we have recessions (gray bars). To cure recessions, the government increases “Debt.” GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports.
The national debt reached a record high of 106 percent as a share of GDP during World War II. The CBO projects the record to be broken in 2029, and the debt will keep climbing—to 181 percent of GDP by 2053.
A meaningless graph that tells you nothing about the U.S. economy yesterday, today, or tomorrow.
Even something called the “World Population Review” is hypnotized by this meaningless ratio. Here is what they say:
Typically used to determine the stability and health of a nation’s economy, the debt-to-GDP ratio is expressed as a percentage and offers an at-a-glance estimate of a country’s ability to pay back its current debts.
And here are the examples they give:
Top 12 Countries with the Highest Debt-to-GDP Ratios
Venezuela — 350%
Japan — 266%
Sudan — 259%
Greece — 206%
Lebanon — 172%
Cabo Verde — 157%
Italy — 156%
Libya — 155%
Portugal — 134%
Singapore — 131%
Bahrain — 128%
United States — 128%
Top 12 Countries with the Lowest Debt-to-GDP Ratios (%)
Isn’t it nice to know that all these countries — Russia, Afghanistan, Botswana, et al. — supposedly are more stable and healthy and better able to pay back their current debts than the United States and Japan?
It must be true because that is what the Libertarians, the CBO. Michael A. Peterson and the World Population Review are telling you.
So be sure to tell all your creditors not to pay you dollars because you’d rather receive Russian rubles. Right?
The (CBO’s) projections leave out the possibility that Congress will extend the Trump administration’s tax cuts past their planned expiration in 2025—which would add to the deficit and require more borrowing in the future—or the possibility that Social Security’s impending insolvency will be papered over with yet more borrowing.
The United States cannot become insolvent. Per Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”
Because the U.S. can’t become insolvent, Social Security, a federal agency, can only become insolvent if that is what Congress and the President want.
What the author calls “papered over” normal people would call “paying for,” which the government can do simply by pressing a computer key.
And do you really believe that no Congress or president will hike spending without offsetting tax increases in the next three decades?
If Congress and the President increase taxes they will not “offset” anything. Federal taxes do not fund federal spending. They are destroyed upon receipt, and new dollars are created ad hoc to pay for expenditures.
Under an alternative scenario in which the Trump administration’s tax cuts are extended, and federal spending grows at the same rate as the economy (rather than in line with inflation, as the CBO assumes), the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projects the debt to hit 222 percent of GDP by 2053.
And that 222 percent will have no meaning.
There’s one shred of good news inside the CBO’s latest report, however. Compared to last year, long-term borrowing is expected to be slightly lower. That resulted from the debt ceiling deal struck last month between Congress and the White House.
The deal included spending caps on nondefense discretionary spending for the next two years, and even that minimal bit of fiscal responsibility can have a measurable impact on future deficits.
This is terrible news. A limit on spending growth is, by definition, a limit on economic growth. Could you remember the formula for measuring the economy?
Still, the modest decline in future deficits mainly illustrates the daunting size of the federal government’s debt problem. By 2053, the debt will more than double the size of America’s economy—and, again, that’s only if you assume borrowing won’t increase for any reason in the next three decades.
“This level of debt would be truly unprecedented,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in a statement. “Time is of the essence; we simply cannot afford to keep borrowing at this unsustainable rate.”
May MacGuineas is another Henny Penny paid by the rich to claim that the middle and poor should receive less money.
Good heavens, one needs to learn only five simple facts, and even that seems to be too much for the economic “experts.”
Gross Domestic Product (the economy) = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports
The U.S. government (unlike state/local governments, euro nations, businesses, you, and me) is Monetarily Sovereign. It, and any of its agencies, can only run short of its sovereign currency if Congress and the President will it.
Federal taxes (unlike state/local government taxes) pay for nothing. They are destroyed upon receipt by the Treasury.
Having the infinite ability to create dollars, the government never borrows. The so-called “debt” actually is deposited into T-security accounts. Those dollars remain the depositor’s property, never used by the federal government for anything, and “paid off” by returning them to the owners.
Inflation never is caused by money creation. It always is caused by shortages of crucial goods and services, most often oil and food.
If you understand these five facts, you know more than most economists, politicians, and media writers.
Just five things. Is that so hard?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary SovereigntyTwitter: @rodgermitchellSearch #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.
Ignorance is expensive. Used car dealers prove that to customers every day.
Caitlin Owens
Unfortunately, so do writers like Caitlin Owens, who is described as “a health care reporter for Axios. She covers health care politics, policy, and business,” but seemingly doesn’t understand federal finances.
Quick intro: Unlike state/local governments, the U.S. federal government is Monetarily Sovereign.
It has the infinite ability to create its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar. It never, unintentionally, can run short of dollars.
Federal taxes do not fund federal spending.
Bills are paid by creating new dollars, ad hoc.
Even if the federal government collected zero taxes, it could continue to pay its bills, forever.
Keep that in mind as you read what Owens wrote:
Whoever wins the White House next year will quickly face a series of legislative deadlines with impossible price tags:
$3.6 trillion in tax cuts and $350 billion in Affordable Care Act subsidies are expiring. That’s after another debt-limit cliff.
Passing legislation that could be north of $4 trillion is “ridiculous when you already have debt that’s headed to record levels,” said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director at the CFRB.
The so-called “federal debt” is not debt, and it is not a financial problem. It is the total of deposits into Treasury Security accounts, which are easily paid off every day. The government simply returns the dollars in those accounts to the account owners.
No problem at all. No tax dollars are needed or involved.
Why it matters: The deadlines could force political horse-trading of epic proportions. Alternatively, gridlock or alarm over the nation’s debt may lead to Americans seeing higher taxes and fewer benefits.
There is no reason for alarm. There is no reason for higher taxes. There is no reason for fewer benefits. This all is a con to make you think federal benefits to you are unaffordable.
The big picture: The 2024 election could very well be a rematch between the same two presidents who signed each measure into law.
Republicans’ 2017 tax law, and the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that Democrats first passed in 2021, are signature policy accomplishments for each party. They’re also both extremely polarizing and became law under party-line votes.
In the past, the coinciding expiration dates may have been fodder for a grand bargain in which both sides etched out wins — and still could be.
But the recent debt-limit fight showed that these days, even a crisis can barely force Democrats and Republicans to agree.
Between the lines: Most Democrats would happily extend the ACA subsidies. But allowing taxes to rise may be a tough political sell — especially since the party increasingly represents wealthier parts of the country.
The above paragraphs show that Ms. Owens believes federal taxes are necessary to fund federal spending. They aren’t.
The federal government could, if it wished, pay a $10 trillion or a $100 trillion bill tomorrow merely by pressing a computer key.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: “There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody.”
Former Federal Reserve Chairman 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.”
The debt-limit fight, mentioned by Ms. Owens, was a charade for the benefit of the public. The sole purpose of a debt limit is to convince the populace not to ask for federal benefits.
Behind the scenes, the very rich, who control Washington, want the Gapbetween the rich and the rest to widen. The wider the Gap, the richer are the rich. (It’s called Gap Psychology) — the desire of the rich to become richer by widening the income/wealth/power Gap below them.)
Federal benefits narrow the Gap, and the rich don’t want that.
Reality check: Budget hawks warn that the nation’s finances are on a disastrous path. Letting at least some of these policies expire — or finding a way to pay for extensions — would be the responsible course of action.
Reality check: The extensions could be paid for merely by passing a law that pays for the extension. That is how all federal debts are financed. Congress and the President simply pass laws.
Political horse-trading could increase the cost of a deal — if the limit on the state and local tax deduction is eliminated, for instance.
Increasing the deal’s cost would benefit America by pumping growth dollars into the economy. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports.
Mathematically, the more the federal government spends, the more GDP grows.
Even one-party control of Congress and the White House wouldn’t necessarily make the process headache-free.
The nation’s debt level will only rise over the next two years, forcing Republicans to choose between raising taxes and dropping another $3.6 trillion onto the balance sheet, according to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
“I think there will be a faction of the Republican party who would not want to go into a debate, even with significant tax cuts, if it would blow a hole” in the deficit,” Campbell said.
Again, Ms. Owens repeats the false trope that federal finances are like personal finances, where the “balance sheet” should be minimized.
She gets this from that fountain of lies, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), an organization devoted to convincing you the federal government should spend less and tax the not-rich folks more.
It’s called “austerity,” a formula for economic disaster. Ask any Euro nation how that has gone.
And while most Democrats would happily extend the ACA subsidies, and nearly all of them have criticized the Trump tax cuts as handouts to the wealthy, allowing taxes to rise may be a tough political sell — especially as the party increasingly represents wealthier parts of the country.
Raising federal taxes should be a hard sell because it’s unnecessary. The sole purposes of federal taxes are:
To control the economy by taxing what the government wishes to discourage and by giving tax breaks to what the government hopes to encourage
To create demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring dollars to be used for tax payments
Federal taxes do not fund federal spending.
“It could potentially be a really good deal for Democrats if they were to agree to extend the tax cuts and extend the ACA subsidies. Then they don’t get blamed for raising people’s taxes, and they get the subsidies,” former House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, a Democrat, told Axios.
It also would be a good deal for the economy because both steps would leave more growth dollars in the economy.
Yes, but: Budget hawks warn that the nation’s finances are on a disastrous path, and letting at least some of these policies expire or finding a way to pay for extensions would be the responsible course of action.
That is a bunch of BS. America’s finances are not on a disastrous path. Increased federal spending is absolutely necessary for economic growth. Here’s what happens when the federal government cuts spending to run a surplus.
U.S. depressions tend to come on the heels of federal surpluses.
1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807.
1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.
1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.
There are also scenarios where political horse-trading could even increase the cost of a deal— like if the limit on the state and local tax deduction is eliminated or if Democrats successfully demand more of their preferred policies to more closely match the cost of extending the tax cuts.
Increasing “the cost of the deal” would add growth dollars to the economy. Remember that GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports formula. Increase federal spending and mathematically, you increase GDP because two terms in the formula (Federal Spending and Nonfederal Spending) will increase.
What we’re watching: One of the simplest ways to bring down the price tag of any of this would be to just pass temporary extensions.
There is no reason to bring down the price tag. None at all.
“I can’t imagine that any Congress is going to pass a bill that costs $4 trillion,” Yarmuth said. “My guess is if they did something, it would be a much shorter duration.”
But limiting the price tag by extending the measures for only a couple of years is “a horrible way to do tax policy,” Goldwein said.
“There are other ways to have a deal that would be fairer to both sides that don’t involve sticking the bill to our grandkids,” he added.
And so, the article ends with the oft-stated but totally BS notion that federal spending would be paid for by “our grandkids.” Anyone making that claim is demonstrating ignorance of federal finances or being intentionally deceptive.
Federal spending is paid for by federal new money creation. The federal debt is paid for by returning T-security account deposits. Federal taxes pay for nothing. They are destroyed upon receipt.IN SUMMARY
The nations finances are on a “disastrous path” only if one believes federal finances are like personal finances, which they are not.
Federal taxes don’t fund federal spending; they remove growth dollars from the economy. So tax cuts are inherently good for the economy and for you.
Unfortunately, the Trump tax cuts mostly were gifts to the rich; they widened the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
The Affordable Care acts (ironically called “Obamacare,” though Obama did virtually nothing to enable its passage), has benefitted millions of Americans. The rich hate it because it narrows the Gap between the rich and the rest.
Ignorance of federal financing is costly to those who currently benefit, or would benefit, from more federal spending, namely everyone in America, and most of the world’s population.
Ms. Owens would serve her readers better if she learned the facts of Monetary Sovereignty and the diferences between federal financing and personal financing.
Her misstatements, and the mistatements of those who agree with her, cost you money. They widen the Gap between the very rich and the rest.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary SovereigntyTwitter: @rodgermitchellSearch #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 