Crocodile tears (or superficial sympathy) is a false, insincere display of emotion such as a hypocrite crying fake tears of grief.

The phrase derives from an ancient belief that crocodiles shed tears while consuming their prey, and as such is present in many modern languages, especially in Europe where it was introduced through Latin.

While crocodiles do have tear ducts, they weep to lubricate their eyes, typically when they have been out of water for a long time and their eyes begin to dry out. However, evidence suggests this could also be triggered by feeding.

The media continually cry crocodile tears for the American taxpayer, bemoaning the “unsustainable” federal spending that supposedly forces federal taxpayers to pony up.

In reality, federal spending benefits all Americans by pumping dollars into the private sector, and federal taxpayers do not pay one dime to fund that spending.

Even if all federal tax collections — FICA, income taxes, luxury taxes, etc. — totaled $0, our Monetarily Sovereign federal government could continue spending, even increase it dramatically, forever.

Here are excerpts from an article that ran in the 7/1/19 Chicago Tribune (Marc A. Thiessen writes for The Washington Post. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush.):

The debates’ biggest losers? American taxpayers
By Marc A. Thiessen

Sen. Kamala Harris of California may have been the breakout winner of Wednesday and Thursday’s Democratic presidential debates, but there was one clear loser: the American taxpayer.

These were the most expensive presidential debates in American history. Never have so many candidates proposed to spend so much.

The author, Marc A. Thiessen knows as much about economics as does the average America, i.e virtually nothing.

No harm in knowing nothing. We all know nothing about many things. But if you know nothing about a subject, either do some research or don’t embarrass yourself by writing nonsense.

That is why I don’t pontificate about quantum chromodynamics. I assume you don’t either.

Sadly, Thiessen thinks federal taxpayers fund federal spending. They don’t.

Yes, state taxpayers fund state spending. County taxpayers fund county spending. City taxpayers fund city spending. States, counties, and cities are monetarily non-sovereign. they don’t have a sovereign currency.

But the federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has a sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar, which it creates, ad hoc, every time it pays a creditor.

Thiessen’s headline, “The debates’ biggest losers? American taxpayers” is wrong, and not just wrong but diametrically wrong. He prattles about finances, but doesn’t even understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty.

What next? Writing about accounting and not knowing the difference between a debit and a credit?

America’s taxpayers gain from federal spending, because those newly created dollars go into the private sector, i.e the pockets of Americans.

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Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government can produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

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In speaking about finances, Thiessen’s headline should have been something like: The debates’ biggest winners? Americans.”

That is how fundamental Monetary Sovereignty is to economics.

In the first debate, NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie asked Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren about the economic impact of her plans for “free college, free child care, government health care, cancellation of student debt” and in the second asked Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., whether his proposals “for big, new government benefits, like universal health care and free college,” would require middle-class tax increases. (They would.)

(No they wouldn’t). Think about it. If taxes funded federal spending, why would the federal government pretend to borrow dollars?

I say “pretend,”  because the federal government not only doesn’t need to tax, it also doesn’t need to borrow. It has the unlimited ability to create unlimited dollars.

So what is the purpose to Treasury Securities, if not to obtain dollars?

I’m glad you asked. The purposes of issuing Treasury Securities are:

1. To assist the Fed in setting interest rates, which helps moderate inflation.
2. To provide the world with a safe place to “park” unused dollars, which helps stabilize the value of the dollar.
3. To make you believe the federal government does not have the unlimited ability to create dollars, and is in danger of running short of dollars, so you will not demand more federal benefits.

 

Instead of shoring up Medicare, Democrats want to expand it to cover virtually everyone in the country.

Sanders’ “Medicare for All” legislation has been co-sponsored by Sens. Warren, Harris, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

Medicare doesn’t need “shoring up.” It needs truth from our politicians.

The federal government easily could pay for a comprehensive, no deductible Medicare plus long term care, the same way it pays for everything else: By creating new dollars.

Nonpartisan estimates put its cost at $32 trillion over the first 10 years.

If true, that would add $32 trillion growth dollars to the U.S. economy. Today, it’s the people in the private sector (the “taxpayers” Thiessen pretends to be concerned about.

There are only two health care alternatives: Pay for it or do without it. 

The federal government has the unlimited ability to pay for it. People do not. When the federal government pays that helps grow the economy.

So who should pay?

Or take free college. Harris, Warren, Gillibrand and Booker have signed on to the Debt-Free College Act, which would cost at least $840 billion over 10 years.

Sanders has introduced a $2.2 trillion College for All Act that would make public colleges and universities tuition-free and debt-free, and erase the roughly $1.6 trillion in student loan debt.

Warren has also proposed a $640 billion student loan debt cancellation plan.

Warren has proposed a plan for “universal child care” and early learning that would cost $700 billion over 10 years, while Harris, Beto O’Rourke and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., have endorsed the Child Care for Working Families Act, which would cost $700 billion over 10 years.

As with health care, there are only two alternatives for college: Pay for it or do without. When the government pays, the populace is enriched. When the people pay, they are impoverished.

Further, education helps grow the U.S. economy and make it more competitive.

That is why states, counties, and cities, which do not have a sovereign currency, still pay for education.

“Those who regularly preach doom because of government budget deficits (as I regularly did myself for many years) might note that our country’s national debt has increased roughly 400 fold during the last of my 77-year periods. That’s 40,000%!” 
Warren Buffett 

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Amazingly, none of the NBC anchors asked about the Green New Deal, but climate change was front and center in both debates.

Joe Biden’s climate plan would cost $1.7 trillion over a decade. Warren has pitched a $2 trillion plan, O’Rourke’s proposal would cost $5 trillion, while Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s green jobs plan would cost $9 trillion.

Regarding the moderation of climate change, once again there are only two alternatives: Pay for it or let it go and pray that Trump is correct that it’s a “Chinese hoax”, and 97% of climatologists are wrong about major floods, species loss, farmland loss, more disease, and greater poverty.

Between Trump and the scientists, I’ll go with the scientists.

Then there are government-guaranteed jobs. Harris, Warren and Gillibrand have co-sponsored Booker’s Federal Jobs Guarantee Development Act, while Sanders has proposed an ambitious government jobs plan with guaranteed wages of $15 an hour, retirement and health benefits, child care and paid family leave.

I can’t disagree with his comment about the Jobs Guarantee program. I have written against it many times.

Andrew Yang proposed a government-provided universal basic income that would give every American over the age of 18 a monthly check of $1,000 — which would cost between $28 trillion and $40 trillion over 10 years.

If correct, that would add $28 trillion – $40 trillion growth dollars to the economy. Is it better for the economy, businesses, and people to do without those dollars?

As if all of the above weren’t ignorant enough, now comes the really ignorant part:

Where things get really expensive is the nexus between the Democrats’ spending plans and their immigration policies.

During the first debate, former housing and urban development secretary Julián Castro said he would decriminalize illegal border crossings.

When the candidates in the second debate were asked how many supported his plan, nearly every candidate’s hand went up. (Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado was the only one to abstain.)

Every candidate raised a hand when asked if their government health plan would provide coverage for illegal immigrants.

The combination of decriminalizing illegal entry and offering those who enter illegally free health care would create a magnet for millions to enter our country — dramatically increasing the cost of every public health care plan.

And once here, these migrants would presumably also seek to take advantage of other free programs the Democrats are proposing, which means their costs would also skyrocket beyond these estimates.

Like all migrants before them, these migrants also would be workers, consumers, creators, and thinkers, i.e economy builders.

That is how America grew from a few thousand people to more than 330 million, and became the most powerful nation on earth.

Contrary to President Trump’s wrong-headed warnings, the U.S. is not “full.” (Later, he admitted we need more people, but him speaking on two sides of his mouth is not news.)

Open borders and socialism are a path to national suicide.

Thiessen knows so little about economics that he thinks federal spending is socialism. It isn’t, but it’s a term the ignorant right loves to toss around because it has become a pejorative. (Socialism is government ownership and control, not just spending.)

And no one but Trump uses the term “open borders” to describe having an immigration policy similar to what our policies have been for 200+ years.

It’s a lie, but what can you expect?

According to the Congressional Budget Office, under current law — without all the Democrats’ new entitlements — debt held by the public is already projected to increase from 78% of gross domestic product today to 144% by 2049.

This level of debt is unsustainable and could lead to another financial crisis.

First, it’s not “debt.” It’s investments in T-securities, which are paid off every day, simply by returning the dollars that reside in T-security accounts.

The federal government neither needs nor uses those dollars. It simply returns them when T-securities mature.

Second, the economically ignorant have been making exactly the same “unsustainable”claim for at least 80 years. (See “ticking time bomb.”)

They were wrong then, in 1940 when the so-called “debt” was $40 billion, and they have been wrong every year since, now that the “debt has grown about 50,000%.

Last I saw, Japan’s “debt” was 250% of GDP, and so far they have “sustained.”

Third, every depression and most recessions in U.S. history have corresponded with “debt” reduction, not “debt increase.”

The reason is simple. “Debt” increases add dollars to the nation’s economy, and “debt” decreases take dollars from the nation’s economy.

Which is more likely to cause recessions and depressions?

So you now can add Marc A. Thiessen’s name to the depressingly long list of people who talk and write about economics, but are clueless about the science.

What next, Mr. Thiessen, an article about quantum chromodynamics?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell
Search #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the richer and the poorer.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA

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

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

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

5. Salary for attending school

6. Eliminate federal taxes on business

7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 

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

9. Federal ownership of all banks

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

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY