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It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders.
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In just one, short article, the March 31 edition of THIS WEEK Magazine demonstrates how the media are complicit in the brainwashing of America.
First, it quotes Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post:
If the budget plan President Trump released is any guide, his new goal is to make the nation “dumber, dirtier, hungrier, and sicker.” Predictably titled “America First,” this brutal document calls for a 9 percent boost in annual defense spending, paid for with deep cuts to almost everything else.
Trump is proposing a stagggering 31% cut in funding to the Enviromental Protection Agency and would also deeply slash funding for foreign, aid, medical and scientific reserach and anti-poverty programs, eliminating funding for National Public Radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts.
No, those deep cuts to programs that improve your life and the lives of middle and lower income people, will not “pay for” anything, nor will they “create jobs,” as Trump claims.
Unlike state and local governments, the federal government is Monetarily Sovereign, meaning it never can run short of its own sovereign currency.
Even if tax collections fell to $0, the federal government could continue spending, forever.
The article then quotes Ed Rogers of the Washington Post:
“Spending cuts are always painful, but what choice do we have when every man, woman, and child in the nation is currently on the hook for $166,000 of our $19 trillion national debt.
“The reality is that we just can’t afford to keep spending at the rate that we are.”
That was 100% BS.
Not only can the federal government afford to spend as it has been, it can afford to spend far more. We have documented this lie about unaffordability since 1940, and it never changes.
We always are told “can’t afford” to keep spending at our current rate, but somehow, though we spend even more, we keep affording it.
The people of America are not liable for any of the so-called federal “debt.” Have you noticed any bill collectors coming to your door, to ask you for your $166,000 share?
Then there was the quote from Stephen Moore in Spectator.org:
“He (Trump) wants to surgically remove trillions of dollars of wasteful spending. The pushback from those groups, the welfare state, and the liberal media has already begun.”
Note the words, “welfare state.” Those are code for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other aids to the middle and lower income groups. Trump, being rich, disdains those groups (despite his phony pandering to coal miners).
The “liberal media” refers to anyone who wants to help the non-rich, a crime in the eyes of the rich.
Trump knows that the only way to “surgically remove trillions of dollars from (so-called) wasteful spending” is to gut social programs — or gut the military, on which he wishes to lavish more billions.
And the next bit of brainwashing comes from Nick Gillespie, in Reason.com:
“Overall federal spending will still come in around $4 trillion, with nearly the same deficit: $559 billion. Worse, for those of us who actually care about our spiraling national debt, Trump’s budget does nothing to curb spending on Medicare, Social Sercurity, and the other entitlement programs, which everyone knows are where the real money is.”
The so-called “spiraling national debt,” actually is the total of deposits in T-security accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank. These bank deposits are not a burden on the federal government or on taxpayers. Never have been; never will be. The federal debt scare is a fake.
Sure, we in of the upper 1% income group want to cut your Medicare, your Social Security, and your other entitlement benefits. Isn’t that what you want, too?
And yes, that’s where the real money is, so how will the conservatives cut the budget without cutting your benefits?
Always remember, budget cuts (aka “austerity”) mean cuts to the private sector (aka “the economy.”) Always.
Now, we move on to the quote from the WashingtonExaminer.com editorial.
“The goal of the budget is not to wipe out the deficit. Nor is Trump saying that medical research is a bad thing, or that children should go hungry”
“Wipe out” the deficit? More weasel words. The goal of the right wing is to reduce the deficit, though yes, some of the more extremist would like to wipe it out altogether. But, deficit spending is the federal government’s method for growing the economy.
Cutting the deficit to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
And, uh, excuse me, if Trump cuts medical research budgets and the budgets for providing food to children, what exactly does he expect to happen?
“He’s just establishing the conservative principle that some activities are better handled by the private sector, or by a level of government closer to the individual.”
The phrase “better handled by the private sector” means privatizing — the 1%’s method for reaping big profits.
We often have written about privatization, for instance: “I smell the meat a’cookin’. The new privatization scam.” Anytime you hear a politician recommend turning some job over to the private sector, you can be sure he is salivating over unregulated, risk-free profits.
And that “level of government closer to the individual” means state and local government, which being monetarily non-sovereign, usually are cash strapped and must pay for services with increased taxes.
By contrast, the federal government is Monetarily Sovereign, so never can be cash strapped, and never needs to increase taxes. It doesn’t need taxes at all; the federal government creates dollars, ad hoc, by paying bills.
The rich love it when the middle and the poor have to pay more state and local taxes, because that widens the Gap between the rich and the rest.
And finally, we come to a more subtle bit of brainwashing, courtesy of Doyle McManus in the LATimes.com:
“With Congress in Republican hands, Trump has a golden opportunity to downsize federal spending and make it more efficient.“
No reason is given for why the word’s most powerful nation, a nation of 340 million people, needs a smaller government, while its underfunded cities, counties, and states should spend more.
And what is there in Trump’s suggestions that would make the government more efficient?
There, in just four paragraphs, THIS WEEK Magazine has used six quotes to brainwash you into believing federal finances are like state and local government finances, and like your finances.
If you want to know what federal finances really are like, read, Does the U.S. Treasury really destroy your tax dollars?
THIS WEEK wants you to believe the federal government can’t afford to pay for services that are valuable to you.
Meanwhile, know this: Anyone advocating federal deficit/debt reduction, or privatization, or shifting costs from the federal government to the states, is trying to scam you like a Nigerian prince.
Don’t believe them, and for heaven’s sake, don’t vote for them.
Or, you simply can send your money to that Nigerian prince.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
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THE RULES
•All we have are partial solutions; the best we can do is try.
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money no matter how much it taxes its citizens.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes..
•No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth.
•Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
•A growing economy requires a growing supply of money (GDP = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
•Deficit spending grows the supply of money
•The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Progressives think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
•The single most important problem in economics is the Gap between the rich and the rest.
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between the rich and the rest.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..
MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 