The Libertarian road: From ignorance, to malevolence, to treason.

There was a time when the Libertarians were a sort of third road between liberalism and conservatism, an anarchist movement that opposed both sides equally.

No more.

The Libertarian website, Reason.com, has gone full-bore, white supremacist, fascist, Fox News, Breitbart, Trump-bigoted denialism, as witness the following article:

Punishing Rioters Is Wise. Bogus ‘Seditious Conspiracy’ Charges Are Not. Politics ruin everything, including the criminal justice system. J.D. TUCCILLE | 5.8.2023 7:00 AM

The problem with convicting members of the “Western chauvinist” Proud Boys on seditious conspiracy charges is that it wrongly elevates a violent tantrum by a bunch of thugs to the level of an insurrection, and it lets officials who prosecute them puff themselves up as saviors of the republic.

Worse, the case took liberties with a statute that is probably best forgotten to arrive at its conclusion when normal criminal law could have punished rioters without putting the criminal justice system through contortions.

At this point, you may be shaking your head and wondering whether the article really was written by Tucker Carlson, whose lies about the insurrection (yes, insurrection is precisely what it was) were too much even for Fox (especially since those lies cost Fox upwards of $750 million.)

Apparently, Carlson’s costly lies were suitable for J.D. Tuccille, a former managing editor of Reason.com and current contributing editor.

“A jury in the District of Columbia today returned guilty verdicts on multiple felonies against five members of the Proud Boys, finding four of the defendants guilty of seditious conspiracy for their actions before and during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” the Department of Justice trumpeted last week.

“According to the evidence at trial, in the months leading up to Jan. 6, the defendants plotted to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power, and to prevent the Members of Congress, and the federal law enforcement officers who protect them, from discharging their duties.”

See the pejoratives, “puff themselves up,” “saviors of the republic”?

He’s describing people who saw criminals committing treason and tried those criminals before a jury, who also saw criminals committing treason, and said so.

Libertarian Tuccille would have you believe that trying, by force, to prevent the “lawful transfer of presidential power” is just, in his words, “a tantrum by thugs.”

A “TANTRUM”? Really, J.D.?

A tantrum is a little boy lying on his back, kicking his heels, and demanding not to be taken home from Disneyland.

A tantrum is the wailing from the little girl who wanted a pony for her birthday and only got a dress.

A tantrum is Ron DeSantis trying to punish a teacher for daring to mention that America’s law enforcement has mistreated blacks.

Armed traitors, crashing through barriers to break into Congress, injuring several police, and with the sole purpose of overturning the U.S. government, while stalking Nancy Pelosi and threatening to hang the Vice President of the United States because he wouldn’t install Traitor Donald Trump as President — that is a bit more than a Tuccille “tantrum.”

If all that does not rise to the level of treason, J.D., why don’t you describe to the world precisely what you think constitutes treason?

In former days, traitors were hung or electrocuted. These traitors got off easy.

“At my Senate confirmation hearing just over a month after January 6th, I promised that the Justice Department would do everything in its power to hold accountable those responsible for the heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy: the peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected government,” huffed Attorney General Merrick Garland, a man who gives every impression that he tremendously enjoys the smell of his own emissions.

“Today’s verdict is another example of our steadfast commitment to keeping those promises.”

Oh, Attorney General Merrick Garland “huffed”?

Is that supposed to mean his outrage was misplaced at seeing traitors roaming the halls of Congress, seeking to prevent the lawful installation of the President?

And the “smell of his own emissions” is the description of the man doing his job exactly as it should be done (unlike the Trumpian toadies who preceded him in that post.)

Would a simple “Tut tut,” a slap on the wrist, “boys will be boys'” admonition to not do it again have pleased Tuccille more?

Really, J.D., what is there about a vicious attempt to overturn a national election that has you outraged about a criminal conviction?

And so, we’re told, the republic is safe from those who would rise against it in insurrection.

But before we consign former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and codefendants Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Zachary Rehl to the history books alongside Mosby and Quantrill, Confederate guerrillas of the sort who inspired the seditious conspiracy statute to begin with, let’s consider an important obstacle:

There’s sparse evidence of a meaningful conspiracy “to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States” as required by law.

Shouldn’t a Conspiracy Be Better Organized? “The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result”

“Sparse evidence” except for the plans to gather off-site, and to bring weapons, and to advance on the Capitol at a specific time, even before the crowd arrived from Trump’s exhortations.

“Sparse evidence”? Are we to doubt our eyes and ears while maniacs, emboldened by the head maniac, did everything they could to prevent democratically elected Joe Biden from taking office?

That’s just a little tantrum?

Reuters noted in August 2021. “‘Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases,’ said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation.

‘Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized.But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.'”

Except for building the gallows, searching for Pence, and the “Where are you Nancy?” hunting for Pelosi.

Get this. “Only” five percent of several thousand people — that makes what, several hundred? — created the plot, with the rest of the bunch merely followers.

So your claim, J.D. is several hundred people are too few to commit treason?? And because they were disorganized, it couldn’t be treason??

For instance, if the bank robbers failed to obtain a worthy getaway car — a sign of disorganization — they should not be prosecuted for attempting to rob the bank? What a novel idea from the Libertarian.

And because you and your cronies have failed ever to develop an organized plan for running America without a government, J.D., does that mean the Libertarians are not a real political movement?

Or as a result of disorganization, “only” a few police died, instead of many more, it all was just a tantrum?

That said, if anybody was among those “more closely organized,” it was the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers of the earlier case. But still, prosecutors and the judge had to get creative to arrive at a verdict.

“The sedition trial…was characterized by frequent delays, frayed relations between the defense and prosecution and several decisions by the presiding judge, Timothy J. Kelly, that tested the boundaries of conspiracy law,” reported Alan Feuer and Zach Montague for The New York Times.

It wasn’t the crime that bothers you; it was the “frequent delays and frayed relations” to which you object?

Would you have preferred that the judge rush things through, and the defense and prosecutor got together and sang Kumbaya? Would that have made for a fairer trial”

“Judge Kelly’s rulings allowed prosecutors to introduce damning evidence about the violent behavior and aggressive language of members of the Proud Boys who had only limited connections to the five defendants.

The evidence was damning because the Proud Boys is an organization devoted to the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, in short, a conspiracy of traitors.

The rulings also permitted jurors to convict on conspiracy even if they found there was no plan to disrupt the certification of the election, but merely an unspoken agreement to do so.”

“No plan,” just an “unspoken agreement”? Huh?

If it wasn’t a plan and wasn’t spoken, how did all those traitors know when to show up and then to march in single file, like a well-trained military unit?

The jury heard the evidence and decided that there was a plan and an agreement and that the traitors were speaking quite loudly, screaming in fact, and they came damn close to succeeding.

Only by fractions of a second and a few inches did they fail. They didn’t find Pence. They didn’t find Pelosi. America got lucky.

“Mr. Tarrio was not even in Washington on Jan. 6, having been kicked out of the city days earlier by a local judge presiding over a separate criminal matter,” they added.

And Hitler was not even in France when the Nazis took over. And the Mafia boss seldom iss on site when the murders are committed.

“The Justice Department’s take, of course, fits the narrative favored by Democrats who reflexively describe the Capitol riot as an ‘insurrection.'” Reason’s Jacob Sullum observed.

“But that term implies a level of planning and organization that does not fit the chaotic reality of what happened that day.”

Ah, and there it is: “Favored by Democrats,” J.D. Tuccille’s unintended admission that the attempted coup was a Republican operation, and that he is a GOP apologist.

White supremacists, fascists, and Libertarians hate Democrats. The self-anointed GOP Party of Law and Order, hates the Democrats when they prosecute crimes initiated by Donald J. Trump, the newfound hero of Libertarianism.

The “chaotic reality” is that people planned to use force to stop the count and to stop America’s Democracy, and had they succeeded, the chief traitor would now be the dictator of America.

There’s no easy way to portray the resulting conviction as anything other than a stretch. In fact, less-loaded criminal charges could and did serve to penalize the defendants for their disruptive actions in Washington.

“Destruction of property, impeding Congress, and assaulting police officers, while crimes, don’t allow prosecutors and their political allies to portray themselves in heroic terms.

Hawley mocked over new Jan. 6 video | The Hill — Josh Hawley runs for his life.

That is how Tuccille, who surely would have been hiding under his desk and wetting his pants, had he been faced with the violent traitors, insults those who defended America.

(Or Tuccille would have joined Josh (rabbit) Hawley, running terrified.) He cowardly insults the real heroes, the police, while treasonably defending the indefensible.

Rioters are violent troublemakers, but seditious conspirators can be portrayed as part of a larger movement that intends harm to the whole country.

Lest we forget, the “larger movement that intends to harm the whole country exists. It is the MAGA “stop the steal” movement, as fascist as any movement in America.

Sadly, having learned nothing from the relative taps on the wrists the insurrectionists received, they continue with their election denial, even today.

But that is not anti-democracy, anti-America enough for the Libertarians.

Had the traitors succeeded, Pence would have been hung; Pelosi might have been injured or killed; even more, police would have died, and Congress would have become meaningless.

But sedition, according to Tuccille? Nah.

And now comes the false comparison of all false comparisons, typical of the right-wing, white supremacy crowd of bigots with which Tuccille seems to have aligned:

The Trump administration floated pulling this same stunt with seditious conspiracy charges (often incorrectly framed as just “sedition”) against rioters during the civil unrest of the summer of 2020.

“Attorney General William Barr told the nation’s federal prosecutors to be aggressive when charging violent demonstrators with crimes, including potentially prosecuting them for plotting to overthrow the U.S. government,” The Wall Street Journal’s Aruna Viswanatha and Sadie Gurman reported at the time.

“Sedition charges require proof of efforts to overthrow the United States Government,” Harvard Law’s Laurence Tribe responded.

“Talking in these terms based on what’s happening is grotesquely irresponsible. It’s way beyond monarchical. It’s paranoid and dictatorial. Opus Dei, anyone?”

Likewise, the ACLU called Barr’s proposed seditious conspiracy prosecutions “a tyrannical and un-American attempt to suppress our demands for racial justice and an end to police violence.”

See, in the Tuccille, Libertarian world, when unarmed blacks are killed by police, again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and finally, in frustration at the law’s unwillingness to protect them they riot, this supposedly is similar to Trump’s “patriots” trying to overturn the government.

What was their MAGA grievance? They didn’t like the outcome of the election and with no evidence whatsoever, claimed it was stolen and decided to steal it back.

Tuccille claims the two situations are the same. What a disgusting and thoroughly false comparison

Now the shoe is on the other foot, with a new administration wielding seditious conspiracy charges as weapons against another set of rioters with a different flavor of politics.

Yes, it’s just a “different flavor of politics.” To Tuccille, the coup was just a few poor little Republicans, who persecuted by the police, are innocently airing their grievances. Right?

Again, the rioters’ actions would justify prosaic criminal prosecutions if their partisan loyalties weren’t at odds with those in power.

But why just punish political opponents for bad behavior when you can smear them and their associates as dangers to the nation?

Hey, now, trying to overturn democracy is just “bad behavior” akin to shoplifting or parking in a no-parking zone. Right?

In a country as divided as ours, everything becomes a bludgeon against hated others. Politics ruin everything, including the criminal justice system.

And with his final words, Libertarian J.D. Tuccille, at last, tells the truth. Politics has ruined the criminal justice system.

Ask any black or Mexican or gay or Muslim or Jew who has lived under the bootheel of the right-wing, fascist, bigoted group known as the Libertarian/GOP.

Ruining the criminal justice system is the specialty of hate-mongering bigots, like those Southern sheriffs who wore white sheets and lynched blacks.

Yet even they didn’t try to overturn the election of the President of the United States.

That was left to the Proud Boys and their apologists, Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump and the Tuccille Libertarians.

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

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Oh, Veronique, you write so much and seem to know so little about America’s #1 scam.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY is a contributing editor at Reason.

She is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

According to the 2017 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report (Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, University of Pennsylvania), Mercatus is number 39 in the “Top Think Tanks in the United States” and number 18 of the “Best University-Affiliated Think Tanks”.

The Koch family has been a major financial supporter of the organization since the mid-1980s. Charles Koch serves on the group’s board of directors.

The following is Ms. de Rugy’s article from the Libertarian website, REASON.com.

Social Security Is on the Brink of Collapse. The GOP Won’t Touch It. In 1950, there were more than 16 workers for every beneficiary. In 2035, that ratio will be only 2.3 workers per retiree. VERONIQUE DE RUGY | 1.26.2023 12:01 AM

If you follow policy debates long enough, arguments you never thought you’d hear can become key components of the two parties’ policy platforms.

That’s certainly the case when it comes to some Republicans, and their new “never touch Social Security and Medicare” position.

Over the weekend, newly elected Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) tweeted that former President Donald Trump was 100 percent correct to demand that “under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security.”

Vance’s tweet was issued amid the debt ceiling fight, but Trump has long held this position.

The Republicans would love to cut Medicare and Social Security benefits because that would increase the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest. The Gap is what makes the rich rich. If not for the Gap, no one would be rich. We all would be the same. The wider the Gap, the richer are the rich. The GOP, the party of the rich, is always ready to help make the rich richer. Their big tax reduction during the Trump years enriched the rich and did nothing for the middle and poor. The GOP complaints about funding the IRS had to do with protecting the rich. So long as the IRS is underfunded, they don’t have the manpower to investigate the complex tax returns of the rich, so currently, they focus on the middle and lower levels. The only reason the GOP won’t try to cut Medicare and Social Security benefits is that they would be punished at the polls, not because they care about the health and well-being of the middle or poor. They don’t. Watch for the GOP “solution” to the non-problem of Social Security and Medicare finances to be something that doesn’t hurt the rich, such as increasing the FICA income limit. Rich people aren’t worried about paying FICA taxes on an above $150M salary. Not only is that chump change for the rich, but many don’t pay any FICA because they aren’t salaried.

Now, to be fair, the GOP’s well-intentioned engagement in the overall debt ceiling dispute is limited by the short time Congress has to raise the limit, all but ruling out credible reforms of Medicare or Social Security.

GOP’s “well-intentioned” engagement in the debt ceiling dispute?? I didn’t realize Veronique was a humor writer. Or perhaps she believes her readers are fools.

Reforming these two programs will take a considerable amount of time and requires bipartisan action. However, this reality is no reason to assert that the programs’ benefits should never be touched.

In right-wing speak (Yes, Libertarians are closet right-wingers), “reform” Social Security and Medicare means cut benefits to the middle class and the poor.

I cannot wait to hear the grand plan that the “don’t touch Social Security and Medicare” Republican caucus has to address the $116 trillion over 30-year shortfall—that’s 6 percent of U.S. GDP—facing the two programs.

No action from Congress means no money to pay for all the benefits. That means enormous cuts that will hurt the low-income seniors who depend on the programs.

That is a bald-faced lie. The federal government could double, triple, or quadruple benefits for both programs while eliminating all FICA collections and still have money to pay Congressional, Presidential, and SCOTUS salaries. Contrary to popular myth, FICA pays for nothing. Every FICA dollar ripped from your paycheck and sent to the U.S. Treasury is destroyed upon receipt. The dollars come from the M2 money supply, so when you pay $1 in federal taxes, the M2 money supply declines by $1. But when those M2 dollars reach the Treasury, they instantly cease to exist in any money supply measure. There is no money supply measure for federal funds simply because the federal government has the infinite ability to create dollars. Thus, the federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has infinite dollars. Adding your tax dollars to infinity doesn’t change infinity.

Of course, if Vance and friends insist on not touching benefits, they could address the Social Security and Medicare shortfalls with enormous tax hikes.

Federal taxes don’t fund federal spending, so they can’t “address Social Security and Medicare shortfalls.”

For Social Security alone, when the trust fund dries out, they will have to agree to immediately raise the payroll tax from 12.4 percent to 15.64 percent—or close to a 25 percent tax increase.

Add to that the tax hike necessary for Medicare and then repeat the exercise over the years to fill the entire shortfall.

The tax hikes would have no effect on Social Security and Medicare solvency. These federal agencies and all other federal agencies are solvent because they are funded by the infinitely solvent U.S. government. The misnamed federal “debt” is not a debt of the federal government. The government has paid all its debt the same way: By creating dollars from thin air. The federal debt is the net total of all federal deficits — the difference between total spending and total taxing. That difference is bridged by federal money creation so that all obligations are paid on time. Have you ever wondered how the federal government can raise the debt ceiling whenever it wishes? According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the debt ceiling has been raised, extended, or revised 78 separate times since 1960. And all these increases were done without tax increases (otherwise, the debt ceiling would not have been reached) because federal taxes don’t fund anything. (State and local governments (unlike the federal government) are monetarily NON-sovereign. They don’t have the unlimited ability to create dollars, so their taxes do fund their spending.)

It’s not as if we haven’t been warning politicians that these troubles were brewing. Back in 2000, roughly when I started working on fiscal issues, experts already warned that the Social Security trust fund would run out of assets by 2037, triggering painful benefit cuts.

Not only does the Social Security trust fund not pay SS benefits, but it isn’t even a trust fund. To quote right-winger Pete Peterson:

WHAT ARE FEDERAL TRUST FUNDS? Sep 20, 2016, Peter G. Peterson Foundation

A federal trust fund is an accounting mechanism used by the federal government to track earmarked receipts (money designated for a specific purpose or program) and corresponding expenditures.

The largest and best-known funds finance Social Security, Medicare, highways and mass transit, and pensions for government employees.

Federal trust funds bear little resemblance to their private-sector counterparts.

In private-sector trust funds, receipts are deposited and assets are held and invested by trustees on behalf of the stated beneficiaries.

In federal trust funds, the federal government does not set aside the receipts or invest them in private assets.

Rather, the receipts are recorded as accounting credits in the trust funds, and the receipts themselves are comingled with other receipts that Treasury collects and spends.

The misnamed trust funds are wholly owned and controlled by the federal government. It can add to them, subtract from them or do whatever else it wishes with them. The notion that the trust funds will run out of money and so can’t pay Social Security or Medicare benefits is ridiculous on its face. The federal government pays whatever benefits it wishes, regardless of so-called “trust funds.’ Further, the government has the unlimited power to add to, or subtract from those fake trust funds whenever it wishes. The whole Social Security/Medicare trust fund fiction is a giant scam to make you believe the government can’t afford SS and Medicare benefits. When politicians whined that Medicare for All or Social Security for All needed to be “paid for” by tax increases or benefit cuts, the sole purpose was to make you agree to widening the income/wealth/power Gap between you and the rich. It is America’s biggest, most crooked scam, and you have been falling for it since Social Security began on August 14, 1935. And you still fall for it without complaint. It’s a scam that makes Bernie Madoff look like an angel. One wonders why you don’t fret about the White House trust fund, the SCOTUS trust fund, the Congress trust fund, the Bureau of Labor Statistics trust fund, the Capitol Police trust fund, the Army trust fund, the Coast Guard trust fund, and all the other federal department and agency trust funds. Oh, they don’t have trust funds? So where do they get their money? Ah, the federal government simply pays the bills by creating dollars from thin air. Just pay thepreciselyand stop lying about “trust funds.” that is exactly what the federal government should do about Social Security and Medicare.

Today, the situation has deteriorated further, with the trust fund now on track to run dry in 2035, along with any practicable hope for fixing the problem.

The fake “trust fund” will run dry only if Congress and the President want it to run dry.

In other words, these problems shouldn’t surprise anyone. When Social Security started, life expectancies were lower. In 1950, there were more than 16 workers for every beneficiary. That ratio is now below three workers per retiree and will be only 2.3 workers per retiree by 2035.

The number of workers per beneficiary is completely irrelevant. Workers do not pay for beneficiaries. FICA does not pay for anything. It’s destroyed. It exists only to con you. Period.

Add to this trend decades of politicians buying votes by expanding benefits beyond incoming payroll taxes, and you have a true fiscal crisis.

To the Libertains’ sneering and twisted minds, giving the populace benefits is “buying votes.” But the sole purpose of any government is to protect and enhance the people’s lives. If any government doesn’t provide benefits, it’s not doing what it was created to do.

That’s why it’s so alarming that so many in the GOP are giving up on educating a public that’s been brainwashed for years with misleading soundbites like “You earned your Social Security benefits, so you are entitled to the benefits now promised,” or “There’s an account with your name on it.”

There is, in fact, an account with your name on it, and it’s called a T-security account. If you have deposited money into a T-bill, T-note, or a T-bond, you have put dollars into your T-security account. Those dollars belong to you. The federal government never touches them. When your account matures, the government returns the dollars in your account. The total of dollars in all T-security accounts is erroneously termed, “the federal debt.” But it not federal and it is not debt. Your dollars belong to you, not the federal government, and there is no debt. Your dollars are safe and comfortably resting in your account just as though they were in your pocket or safe deposit box. Just as the contents of bank safe deposit boxes are not bank debt, the contents of T-security accounts are not federal debt.

Such misinformation has made serious discussion of reform very difficult.

Yes, that is exactly what misinformation has done.

There’s no question that retirees deserve fair treatment, but the facts are that the Supreme Court ruled in 1960 that workers do not have a legally binding right to Social Security benefits, and if Congress cuts benefits even by, say, 50 percent, it can do so—no matter how much anyone has paid into the program.

And so goes the “trust fund” myth. If they were trust funds, you would have a legal right to those benefits, but you don’t and SCOTUS has said so. And they are not trust funds. Congress and the President have 100% control over benefits, which can be raised or cut, arbitrarily, as can the amount of money claimed to be in those fake “trust funds.” What does that say about the mythical trust funds? What does that say about Veronique de Rugy’s claims?

It won’t come to that, but the ruling still stands. It’s also fiction that all the benefits that have been promised were earned by workers—they weren’t.

That’s in part because current retirees are paid with taxes from current workers, not from funds saved out of the payroll taxes retirees paid when they were in the workforce.

No, no, no. Current retirees are not paid with federal taxes. They are paid by the federal government’s infinite ability to create dollars. The purpose of federal taxes is not to fund federal spending. The purpose of federal taxes is to control the economy by punishing what the government wishes to discourage and by rewarding (via tax breaks) what the government wishes to encourage.

It’s magical thinking to say that touching Social Security and Medicare is a nonstarter.

Touching Social Security and Medicare is not a financial nonstarter. The government could increase or decrease benefits at will. But decreasing benefits could be a voter nonstarter and increasing benefits could a rich-donor nonstarter. That rug-of-war is the called the “debt-limit-debate. It’s a debate between the rich and the rest, except the “rest” don’t even know there is a debate, much less a solution.

Even more strange, many of the same Republicans want to spare these two programs while still putting Medicaid on the chopping block. Medicaid should be reformed too, but at least that program serves poor people.

By contrast, the seniors who receive Social Security and Medicare today are overrepresented in the top income quintile while younger Americans are overrepresented in the bottom quintile.

So these guys want to cut benefits for poor people on Medicaid while subsidizing relatively wealthy boomers with taxes taken from relatively poor youngsters.

Yikes.

No, the real “yikes” to to writers like Veroique de Rugy who repeatedly promulgate misinformation about the federal “debt” and the fictional Social Security and Medicare “trust funds.” YIKES!!!!!

The GOP’s transformation into the party of big and fiscally reckless government is proceeding apace.

We agree there. Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

CONGRESS, GOVERNMENT SPENDING, SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, MEDICAID, DONALD TRUMP, ENTITLEMENTS, POLICY, FISCAL POLICY, OHIO, DEBT, NATIONAL DEBT, DEBT CEILING, REPUBLICAN PARTY, DEMOCRATIC PARTY, GDP, INCOME, POVERTY, TAXES, PAYROLL TAX, POLITICS, RETIREMENT, RETIREMENT BENEFITS, EMPLOYMENT, MISINFORMATION, SUPREME COURT, WEALTH, GOVERNMENT, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, BIG GOVERNMENT, ECONOMY, ECONOMICS

Buy stocks. There is no end in sight to America’s economic boom.

Buy stocks. If the following Chicago Tribune/ Associated Press article proves to be correct, America’s economic boom will continue for at least another decade.

Here are some excerpts and translations:

Image result for pouring water out of a bucket — **This is how the GOP, the Dems, and Reason.com fill a bucket.**

US on track for first $1T budget deficit since 2012
By Martin Crutsinger Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The U.S. budget deficit through the first four months of this budget year is up 19% from the same period a year ago, putting the country on track to record its first $1 trillion deficit since 2012.

Translation: . . . putting the economy on track to receive 1 trillion growth dollars from the government this year.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday in its monthly budget report that the deficit from October through January was $389.2 billion, up $78.9 billion from the same period last year.

Translation: The Treasury Department said Wednesday in its monthly budget report that it sent 389.2 billion growth dollars into the economy from October through January, up $78.9 billion from the same period last year.

The deficit reflected government spending that has grown 10.3% this budget year while revenue was up only 6.1%.

For January, the deficit totaled $32.6 billion, compared to a surplus a year ago of $8.68 billion.

Translation: The deficit reflected government stimulus to the economy has grown 10.3% this budget year while taking dollars out of the economy was up only 6.1%.

For January, 32.6 billion growth dollars were added to the economy, compared to a year ago when $8.68 billion were removed from the economy.

Image result for leeches on the back — **Cutting deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.**

President Donald Trump sent Congress a new budget blueprint Monday that projects the deficit will top $1 trillion this year but then will decline over the next decade.

But the Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the deficit will top $1 trillion this year and remain above $1 trillion over the next decade.

Translation: President Donald Trump sent Congress a new budget blueprint Monday that projects sending more than 1 trillion growth dollars into the economy this year, but then would send less over the next decade.

However, the Congressional Budget Office is projecting that 1 trillion growth dollars will be sent into the economy this year and more than 1 trillion growth dollars will be sent in every year over the next decade.

The deficit for the 2019 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, was $984.4 billion, up 26% from the 2018 imbalance.

Translation: Growth dollars added to the economy for the 2019 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, totaled $984.4 billion, up 26% from the 2018 lesser surplus.

The rising deficits reflect the effect of the $1.5 trillion tax cut Trump pushed through Congress in 2017 and increased spending for military and domestic programs that the president has accepted as part of a budget deal with Democrats.

Translation: The rising economic stimuli reflect the effect of the $1.5 trillion tax cut for the rich Trump pushed through Congress in 2017 and increased spending for military and domestic programs that the president has accepted as part of a budget deal with Democrats.

In his new budget plan for the 2021 fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, Trump is proposing spending $4.8 trillion, but would seek to hold down deficits by cutting domestic programs like food stamps and Medicaid.

In his new budget plan for the 2021 fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, Trump is proposing adding 4.8 trillion growth dollars to the economy, but would seek to punish the poor and the economy, by unnecessarily cutting domestic programs like food stamps and Medicaid.

Trump’s plan projects that if Congress goes along with his spending cuts, which is unlikely, the budget would return to balance in 15 years.

Translation: Trump’s plan projects that if Congress goes along with his spending cuts, which is unlikely, the government will take more than a trillion dollars out of the economy, and destroy those dollars, preventing any hope for economic growth, and assuring a depression that would make the 1929 depression look like a garden party.

Through the first four months of this budget year, government spending has totaled a record $1.57 trillion, up 10.3% from the same period last year.

Revenue also set a record for the first four months of a budget year, increasing by 6.1% to $1.18 trillion.

The government first ran $1 trillion deficits from 2009 through 2012 as revenue fell during the worst recession since the 1930s.

Translation: Through the first four months of this budget year, government growth dollars added to the economy have totaled a record $1.57 trillion, up 10.3% from the same period last year.

Unfortunately, the growth dollars removed from the economy also set a record for the first four months of a budget year, increasing by 6.1% to $1.18 trillion.

The government pumped $1 trillion into the economy annually from 2009 through 2012, which helped the economy recover from the worst recession since the 1930s.

We can end this post by showing you excerpts from a truly ignorant article that appeared in Reason.com:

To Revive the Economy, Cut Federal Spending
Obama and Boehner are both big spenders. That’s the problem.
NICK GILLESPIE AND VERONIQUE DE RUGY, 1.1.2013

The Republican opposition, led by House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, has signaled that the Republicans could stomach generating as much as $800 billion in new revenue over the next decade.

Such a large difference obscures a more fundamental agreement: Neither side is interested in addressing the central role federal spending plays in creating persistent deficits and, more important, damping economic growth.

The deficit for fiscal 2012, which ended on Sept. 30, came in at about $1.1 trillion, marking the fourth consecutive year that the nation has posted a trillion-dollar-plus spending gap.

It’s fun to look back in time to see what people, who are completely ignorant of Monetary Sovereignty, said.

We’ve done that when we repeatedly published those “The Deficit is a Ticking Time Bomb” articles since 1940. (The bomb still is ticking).

And now we have the Reason.com’s daily serving of abject ignorance. You’ll note that the article makes dire predictions about the economy unless the government stops adding dollars to the economy.

(Thankfully, it didn’t stop; the dollar additions cured the Great Recession, and after the article was published, the economy continued to grow because of more dollar additions.)

Yet even today, if you go to Reason.com, you’ll find those folks have learned nothing. They still publish the same blather about the danger of deficits.

And here’s the real knee-slapper:

The article quotes economists Carmen M. Reinhart, Vincent R. Reinhart, and Kenneth Rogoff who famously were discredited, partly because they didn’t take into account the differences between a Monetarily Sovereign nation and a monetarily non-sovereign nation. And these are “economists.”

They said that periods of “debt overhang” – when accumulated gross debt exceeds 90 percent of a country’s total economic activity for five or more consecutive years—reduce annual economic growth by more than one percentage point for decades.

Oh REALLY? Look at this graph:

United States Gross Federal Debt to GDP — **GDP/Federal Debt Ratio**

Every year since 2010 (lots more than ten years), the federal debt has exceeded that magic 90% number, and the economy . . . oops . . . well, look for yourself:

United States GDP — GDP growth for the U.S.

Is Reason.com chastened by the facts? No, facts be damned. They have the “We know what we know and don’t bother us with facts” attitude.

And that is how the public is kept ignorant.

And that also is why we will not have a recession in the foreseeable future unless some politician can convince his/her peers that taking money out of an economy is a clever way to grow the economy. (Sort of like spilling water out of a bucket is a clever way to fill the bucket.)

So long as we keep running trillion-dollar deficits, and the deficits keep growing, my advice will be to buy stock.

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

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THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

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 Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and 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 the rest.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–“How to Slash the State: 14 ways to dismantle a monstrous government, one program at a time”

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology.

The November 2010 issue of reason.com contains an article titled, “How to Slash the State: 14 ways to dismantle a monstrous government, one program at a time”

It’s a thoughtful article, but only if you believe the federal government should be smaller, the federal deficit should be lower and taxpayers pay for federal spending. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to support any of these three beliefs. In fact, all the evidence points to the need for ever increasing federal deficit spending, i.e. money creation. (A growing economy requires a growing supply of money.) Also, in a monetarily sovereign nation, taxes do not pay for federal spending (though taxes do pay for state and local spending, as the states, counties and cities are not monetarily sovereign).

Further, some of the “dismantling” they suggest is more like shifting, because some of the suggestions merely push expenses from the federal government (which has unlimited money) to state and local governments (which are having great difficulty paying their bills) – a terrible idea.

Nevertheless, here are the ideas, with my comments.

1. Overhaul Medicaid
“stop the matching grant funding process, in which states receive federal money for each Medicaid dollar they spend” or “scrap the program entirely in favor of a temporary assistance program that doesn’t create long-term dependency.”

The first part of the suggestion shifts more burden to the struggling states, which are not monetarily sovereign, and so cannot create unlimited money. The second part of the suggestion goes under the heading, “These Medicaid recipients aren’t really poor; they are lazy. If we stop giving them help, they’ll go to work.” That simply is nuts.

2. Bring the Troops Home
“. . . a swift and total deoccupation . . . probably would save “$50 billion to $70 billion in fiscal 2011 and perhaps $80 billion to $100 billion a year in 2012 and beyond.”

I’d like to see the troops come home, but not for financial reasons. I have no idea why we’re in Afghanistan, but saving money is a foolish way to manage a war. It kills soldiers.

3. Erase Federal Education Spending
“. . . the federal education budget is full of cuttable programs. If eliminating the entire Department of Education is politically impossible, then the programs with the most tenuous relationships to raising student achievement need to be the first to go.”

This falls under the “make government more efficient” heading. Sure, who can argue with that, but again, it’s not a money thing. It’s an effectiveness thing.

4. Slash State Budgets
“ . . . lawmakers have been living way beyond their means for far too long.”

Not sure what this has to do with the federal government, but I love it. Any specific ideas?

5. End Defined-Benefit Pensions
“ . . . public servants of the future should be put into 401(k) plans like the rest of us, with responsibility to contribute to and manage their own retirement nest eggs.”

This would mean federal employees would receive less money, which would be anti-growth. I agree however, for state and local government employees, as the state and local governments spend taxpayer money.

6. Declare Defeat in the Drug War
“To enforce drug prohibition, state and federal agencies spend more than $40 billion and make 1.7 million arrests every year. This effort wastes resources that could be used to fight predatory crime. . . While imprisoned (as half a million of them currently are), drug offenders cannot earn money or care for their families, which boosts child welfare costs.”

I agree, but again not for money reasons. Prohibition didn’t work in the 1920’s. I can’t imagine why the public and the politicians think it will work, today. Prohibition caused crime in the 1920’s. It causes crime, today. The war on drugs is a perfect example of how the government and the public are incapable of learning from experience.

7. Cancel the Federal Communications Commission
“. . . just about everything the FCC does is either onerous, constitutionally dubious, ineffective, or all three.. . . its role as broadcast censor . . . The best alternative is a world in which spectrum is freely tradable private property rather than a government-managed resource, interference is treated as a tort, and no one worries about whether their next on-air word will result in a seven-figure fine—in other words, a world with no FCC at all.”

The FCC’s role as public scold is useless – actually harmful. The Internet has eliminated the prohibition against swear words, as today one easily can find the most pornographic videos. Fining CBS for Janet Jackson’s 1 second breast reveal, while every sexual act imaginable is available on the Internet, is just plain silly. But, the limited public bandwidth has to be managed to prevent monopolies.

8. Uproot Agriculture Subsidies
“They distort markets and spark trade wars. They make food staples artificially expensive, while making high-fructose corn syrup—the bogeyman of crunchy parents, foodies, and obesity activists everywhere—artificially cheap. They give farmers incentives to tamper with land that would otherwise be forest or grassland. They encourage inefficient alternative energy programs by artificially lowering the price of corn ethanol compared to solar, wind, and other biomass options. School lunches are jammed full of agricultural surplus goods, interfering with efforts to improve the nutritional value (and simple appeal) of the meals devoured by the nation’s chubby public schoolers.”

I agree. Any time the federal government subsidizes an industry, it controls that industry. So you have bureaucrats determining what food is best. While those agriculture subsidies are stimulative, in that they add money to the economy, they distort the market.

9. Unplug the Department of Energy
“. . . more than half of the department’s $26 billion budget ($16 billion) was devoted to managing . . . facilities that make and dispose of materials used for nuclear weapons. . . If Congress and the White House must pursue the development of alternative energy via social engineering, a far more effective alternative to allowing DOE bureaucrats to pick technology “winners” would be a tax on conventional energy. The boost in energy prices would at least encourage inventors and entrepreneurs to get to work.”

All taxes hurt the economy. Taxing energy would tax us all, as we all use energy. The federal gasoline tax has accomplished nothing but take money out of the economy. It certainly has not reduced the consumption of gasoline. It has been an economic cost. This falls under the heading: “If something is harmful, do it again, only more so.” Once again, a failure to learn from experience.

10. Dismantle Davis-Bacon
“. . . which requires all workers on federal projects costing more than $2,000 to be paid the “prevailing wage,” which typically means the hourly rate set by local unions. . . . born as a racist reaction to the presence of Southern black construction workers on a Long Island, New York, veterans hospital project.”

I agree. See #8. It’s another example of the federal government distorting the market, this time the labor market.

11. Repeal the Stimulus
“. . . as of early September, 18 months after the stimulus was passed, an estimated $301 billion remained unspent. That money should be banked, not wasted . . . deficit spending has crowded out private investment.”

A demonstration of financial ignorance. There is no way federal money can be “banked.” And there is no way deficit spending can “crowd out” anything. This is a myth. Without deficit spending, we would be in the deepest depression one could imagine. Of all 14 suggestions, this is the most ignorant.

12. Spend Highway Funds on Highways
“ . . . just to maintain the Interstate Highway System at a decent level is $10 billion to $20 billion per year. . . . lesser highways should all be the states’ problem.”

In other words, transfer the cost from the federal government, which can afford it, to the state governments, which can’t. And how does this help the taxpayer?

13. Privatize Public Lands
“Letting the states manage this land instead would take up to $5 billion a year off the federal books. . .One Forest Service contractor in Arizona recently offered to take over six state parks targeted for closure amid budget cuts. The concessionaire would collect the same visitor fees the state charges today while taking the operations and maintenance costs off the state’s books entirely. Further, the company would pay the state an annual “rent” based on a percentage of the fees collected, turning parks into a revenue generator instead of a money eater.”

In the very few cases where a private company could do this, profitably and under federal supervision, it could be a good idea. Now let’s talk about the other 99% of the public lands. Get real.

14. End (or at Least Audit) the Fed

It’s not explained how auditing would cut federal spending. Bernanke warned that opening the Fed’s books would diminish the central bank’s political independence. I believe him. Imagine relying on Congress to make quick economic decisions. These people can’t decide to go to the bathroom without the threat of filibuster. Let’s face it. The most dysfunctional of all federal agencies is Congress.

In summary, most of these suggestions simply are foolish or would not save taxpayers anything. A couple have some value, not because they “save” money, but because they are good governing policy. All are based an the false assumption that federal spending should be reduced.

Think of the economy as a child and money is its food. Today, the child is starving. To make the child healthy, we must feed it. As the child grows, it will need an increasing amount of food. Yes, if you overfeed the child, it will become fat (inflate), but we are a long way from that. The debt hawks want to starve the child, and then always are surprised when it becomes ill.

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

No nation can tax itself into prosperity

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