The primary goal of the GOP:

INTRODUCTION

America currently has two major political parties.

The Democrats lean toward social progressivism. That includes such concepts as the government providing money and leadership to achieve equality, compassion, human rights, empathy, and concern for future generations’ well-being.

Dems see the income/wealth/power Gaps between the richer and the poorer as being too wide and fundamentally unfair. Democrats’ charity tends to support the less fortunate, who are welcomed as the source of future progress.

The focus is on the similarities of people, on acceptance, and on the tearing down of walls.

“Lean toward” indicates that like all things human, the Dems often depart, in the short term, from these noble long-term goals.

The Republicans ostensibly are conservatives. To “conserve” is to oppose change from such traditional values as self-sufficiency, religion, the value of work, patriotism, and minimal government interference.

The GOP sees the income/wealth/power Gaps as being earned, fair, and the result of hard work and normal human differences. The fundamental belief is that giving to the poor encourages sloth.

Republican charities tend to support religion, particularly Christianity, and the economic status quo. 

The GOP tends to reject the less fortunate as dragging down the rest of “us” by contributing little and taking much. 

The focus is on the differences among people, on the rejection of those who don’t contribute, and on the building of walls.

Of late, the GOP has drifted into Trumpism, which is a form of fascism in which Donald Trump is the Truth, the Word, and the government. 

Trumpism is based on the belief that white, Christian, straight, male followers of Trump are naturally superior, and that only they should receive acceptance and support from the federal government. All others should be excluded.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans base much of their day-to-day actions on the same myth, the federal taxes fund federal spending, and when the federal government spends, it is spending “taxpayers’ money.”

While this “spending taxpayers’ money” notion is true of state and local governments, it is not true of our Monetarily Sovereign federal government which not only creates new dollars ad hoc, every time it pays a bill, but actually destroys all tax dollars sent to it.

When you send your tax check to the government you send dollars that are part of the M1 money supply.

The instant your dollars reach the Treasury, they cease to be part of any money-supply measure. Effectively, they are destroyed.

The Primary GOP Goal

If you vote Republican, you should understand this:

An End to Obamacare

And the propaganda continues from the anarchist lapdogs of the GOP, the “Libertarians”:

Warren’s pitch for a presidential program to help “working people” is a trillion-dollar bailout for the upper-middle class. 

No Peter, it’s a trillion-dollar investment in the people who wish to lift themselves and thereby, lift America.

And then, as if being stupid and deceptive wasn’t sufficient, Suderman gets desperate:

 

Here’s another question worth asking that no one involved seems to want answered: Would a unilateral program of debt forgiveness like the one that is apparently under discussion be legal?

 

The lawyers for the Education Department found that the secretary of education “does not have statutory authority to provide blanket or mass cancellation, compromise, discharge, or forgiveness of student loan principal balances, and/or to materially modify the repayment amounts or terms thereof, whether due to the COVID-19 pandemic or for any other reason.”

That sounds like a pretty firm no.

Uh, Peter. Congress can change any statute. But I’ll bet you already knew that. You did know that, didn’t you?

Sex

Republicans are fixated on gay sex and marriage.

They believe that being gay is a decision as in, “When did you make the decision to be straight or gay?

This leads to phony conversion therapy designed to make gay people  “normal.”

Thus, Republicans believe gays are attempting the impossible task of “grooming” straight kids to turn gay.

Republicans seem to think that being gay is such a wonderful and attractive lifestyle, that any education about gay people creates the danger of enticing straight children to become gay.

To prevent children from “deciding” to become gay, the GOP has passed laws outlawing any teaching about LGBTQ people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer).

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the controversial “Parental Rights in Education” bill into law, prohibiting classroom discussion or instruction on sexual orientation and identity in kindergarten to third grade or in older grades in “a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate.”

No one knows what is “age-appropriate” (or age-inappropriate) or “developmentally appropriate” (or developmentally inappropriate) means, with regard to discussions of sexual orientation.

Sexual orientation exists. Children will ask about it. Not discussing it won’t make it go away.

If children are not given answers from an adult, they will get their answers from other children. If the adult happens to be a gay-hating parent, the children will turn out to be gay-haters (unless they themselves are gay, in which case they will be self-loathing.) 

This is how ridiculous the GOP’s hatred of gays (and non-whites) has become. From Florida newspapers:

With great fanfare and very little evidence, the Florida Department of Education banned more than 50 new math textbooks for containing “indoctrinating information” on “prohibited topics.”

Specific examples of offensive material are still hard to come by, which should anger parents who want better schools, not more crass politics.

Where are the examples of “indoctrination,” “prohibited topics” and “divisive concepts” that threaten public schools in Florida and have so rattled Gov. Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran?

Barring proof that publishers are now pushing 3+3 equals Critical Race Theory (CRT), the decision amounts to a nod to fringe politics.

It clearly hasn’t helped school districts now thrown into a tizzy as they scramble for instructional material for the upcoming school year.

Taxes

The GOP hates taxes, which would be a good thing, except Republicans hate only those taxes that affect the rich.

They love taxes on the middle and lower-income people, and always are on the search for reasons to raise those taxes.

GOP’s new plan: Raise taxes on working people, end Social Security and Medicare. Rick Scott believes he can get elected president on a program of making inequality great again. By Thom Hartmann, March 14, 2022

They’re at it again: Republicans want to raise taxes on poor and working-class Americans, end Social Security and Medicare, jack up pollution and corporate profits, all while continuing to pamper their billionaire donor base.

This time it’s the guy in charge of getting Republican senators elected and re-elected, Florida Sen. Rick Scott.

You may remember him as the guy who ran the company convicted of the largest Medicare fraud in the history of America, who then took his money and ran for governor of Florida, where he prevented the state from expanding Medicaid for low-income Floridians for all the years he ran the state.

Low income working people in America generally pay a higher percentage of their income as taxes than do most of our billionaires and multi-multi-millionaires.

They pay Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, property taxes, sales taxes and taxes in the form of fees for everything from a driver’s license to road tolls to annual car inspections.

Here is the GOP mantra, as expressed by Senator Mitt Romney, “There are 47 percent who are with him,” (Barack Obama’s voters back in 2012), “who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. These are people who pay no income tax.”

No Mitt, the people who pay no income tax are Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, and the rest of the billionaires. They are the real freeloaders. They get all the benefits life has to offer while complaining about the supposed cost of benefits going to the not-rich.

Yes, federal taxes should be cut — No rational person would advocate taking dollars from the economy and giving them to a federal government that has the infinite ability to create dollars — but not if that is used as an excuse to cut the benefits we receive from the government.

Our Monetarily Sovereign federal government has no need for and no use of tax dollars.

The ostensible purpose of federal taxes is to control the economy by taxing what the government wishes to discourage (liquor, cigarettes, etc.) and by giving tax breaks to what the government wishes to encourage (home ownership, solar energy, etc.)

The real purpose of federal taxes is to help the rich become richer by widening the gap between the rich and the rest. The rich pay a much lower percentage of their income and/or wealth as taxes than do the rest of us.

Voting Rights And Other Constitutional Rights

The GOP supports such Constitutional rights as:

  1. States’ rights: The rights of states to pass discriminatory laws that disenfranchise certain voting groups, without interference from the federal government.
  2. Gun rights: The right of anyone to own, carry and wildly use any gun at any time, but not the rights of any state to regulate, tax, or even make a record of any gun or gun owner.
  3. Fetal (even microscopic fetal) rights, but not a woman’s rights to decide her own medical treatment, or the rights of already-born children to a stable, loving home.
  4. The right to poverty, hunger, sickness, homelessness, and ignorance without interference from any government.
  5. The right to spew hate-mongering, fear-mongering, and QAnon-style conspiracy theories, but not school discussions of hate-mongering, fear-mongering, or QAnon-style conspiracy theories, as these classroom discussions may make some students feel “uncomfortable.”
  6. The right to riot and to physically attack Congress and the Vice President in an effort to overturn a proven, legitimate election and to install a Hitlerian psychopath as President. (The GOP terms this type of riot a “normal tourist visit” and does not want it investigated.)
  7. The right to ignore selected portions of the Constitution while claiming “originalism” and “textualism.” Example: Ignoring the original text, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State . . .”

Science

Hurricane Dorian: Trump map mysteriously loops in Alabama - BBC News
Donald Trump with his hand-drawn black Sharpie line “proving” the weather service was wrong and he was right about a hurricane hitting Alabama.

The GOP follows its leader in ignoring science and even attempting to harass and discredit scientists who deliver truths in opposition to Donald Trump’s “truths.”

  1. The denial of the seriousness and severity of COVID led to unpreparedness and to date, a million lost American lives, and many times that number of illnesses and lost working days.
  2. The denial of the anti-COVID effects of vaccination and mask-wearing has compounded #1.
  3. The denial of global warming has led to excessively slow adoption of solar, wind, geothermal, and nuclear energy sources. Our children will pay the price of rising oceans, habitat loss, species loss, and food shortages.
  4. The denial of the environmental damage caused by fracking.

Being Republican demands that you believe, or at least claim to believe, that everyone who disagrees with Trump is a liar or part of “fake news.“ This includes all elements of the scientific community.

“The people who deny science are often trying to uphold membership in something that they find meaningful.” That is why anti-vaxxers tend to be pro-Trumpers. (Ironically, Trump paid for his ignorance by getting COVID, and only later receiving multiple vaccinations. His followers ignore those truths.)

SUMMARY

The GOP has no proposals to improve the lives of you who are not rich. None. Everything the GOP does and advocates is in the service of the rich. No one else matters to the Party Of The Rich.

The current GOP neither is conservative, Libertarian, nor progressive. It is Trumpist. It wants what Trump wants. It hates whom Trump hates. It denies what Trump denies.

The GOP has become a party of bigots, which is why it fears teaching about the dangers of bigotry (what it refers to as “Critial Race Theory“.)

It burns books, just as Hitler did.

Led by a Hitlerian psychopath, the GOP again has proved that hatred and fear are stronger than logic and compassion.

By focusing on the supposed dangers coming from the “other,” they have managed to close people’s eyes to real patriotism, morality, and even self-interest. They support overthrowing of our elected government and installing a martinet

The GOP is a traitorous party, unrecognizable in U.S. history. If  you asked, “What are the goals of the GOP,” you now have your answer.

 

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:

  1. Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
  2. 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. 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

Give me my way or I will torture children. MAGA

Visualize a child-hostage situation in which the hostage-taker says, “Give me a  billion dollars, or I will begin to kill one child every hour.”

How does that make you feel about the hostage-taker?

Visualize that the hostage-taker is the President of the United States, and the hostages are foreign children at our southern border.

How does that make you feel about America?

White House Threatens To Veto Aid Bill For Migrant Families
BY ALAN FRAM – ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is threatening to veto a $4.5 billion House bill aimed at improving the treatment of migrant families detained after crossing the U.S. southern border, saying the measure would hamstring the administration’s border security efforts and raising fresh questions about the legislation’s fate.

The warning came as Hispanic and liberal Democrats press House leaders to add provisions to the legislation strengthening protections for migrant children, changes that might make the measure even less palatable to President Donald Trump.

Is America in such imminent danger from these families that killing children is an appropriate measure?

Many children detained entering the U.S. from Mexico have been held under harsh conditions, and Customs and Border Protection Chief Operating Officer John Sanders told The Associated Press last week that children have died after being in the agency’s care.

He said Border Patrol stations are holding 15,000 people — more than triple their maximum capacity of 4,000.

“Right now, the goal is really to stop — one death is just too much,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., as he left that meeting.

“We’ve got lives at stake,” said Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif.

Federal officials say their agencies have been overwhelmed by the influx of migrants and are running out of funds.

The back-and-forth on the spending measure came as Congress’ top Democrats criticized Trump for threatening coast-to-coast deportations of migrants.

The hostage-taker-in-chief doesn’t only threaten children and families at the border. He also threatens the children and families who, for many years, have lived peaceful, productive lives here in America.

Over the weekend, Trump tweeted that he would give Congress two weeks to solve “the Asylum and Loopholes problems” along the border with Mexico. “If not, Deportations start!” he tweeted.

The president had earlier warned that there would soon be a nationwide sweep aimed at “millions” of people living illegally in the U.S., including families. The sweeps were supposed to begin Sunday, but Trump said he postponed them.

They sent us away. They told us America is”full.” (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)

Wait a minute. Do those millions constitute such a grave and imminent danger that mass, Gestapo-like roundups are warranted?

If the danger is so grave and imminent, why does the President now decide it’s OK to postpone the deportations?

Could it be there is no danger, but rather an invented, political talking point to appeal to Trump’s xenophobic base?

Does Trump believe the immigrants are not really people, but rather are non-human political pawns, whose lives don’t matter to us white American citizens?

Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the threatened raids were “appalling.”

“It is outside the circle of civilized human behavior, just kicking down doors, splitting up families and the rest of that in addition to the injustices that are happening at the border,” she said.

On the Senate floor, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., described Trump’s “chilling, nasty, obnoxious threats” and said the president “seems far more comfortable terrorizing immigrant families” than addressing immigration problems.

“I mean, my God, to threaten separating children from their parents as a bargaining chip? That’s the very definition of callousness,” Schumer said.

Trump, the GOP, and their followers have a long history of mean-spirited cruelty. The attempts to take health care from the poor, by eliminating ACA (“Obamacare”) failed only because one decent Republican (John McCain) objected.

Trump, being indecent himself, still hates McCain for that act of decency.

cityhill.gif

And then there are the states that deny health care to their own poorer citizens by refusing to expand Obamacare, even though the expansion would bring billions of federal dollars into the states.

More Trump, GOP cruelty.

And not to forget the gay hatred and Muslim hatred that courses through right-wing veins.

Finally, let us remember the “DREAMers.”

They are the young undocumented immigrants —who often arrived at a very young age in circumstances beyond their control.

They 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 have 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 children live each day, knowing they are subject to deportation. Trump and the GOP could solve their plight in an instant. Cruelly, the right wing invents excuses to continue the torture. 

Trump is a bully and a coward, as his “Cadet Bone Spurs,” draft-dodging persona demonstrates.

He has the shocking temerity to claim that bullying helpless men, women, and children somehow will “make America great again.”

And ironically, his “religious, patriotic, law-and-order” followers believe him.

The world looks on in astonishment as Reagan’s (and others’), “Shining City upon a hill” sinks into depravity, led down by an egomaniacal psychopath.

MAGA, indeed. That slogan will live in infamy.

One only can hope that when the Trump Gestapo begins to kick down doors and starts herding unfortunate families into boxcars for travel to nowhere,  thousands of good Americans, true Americans will surround the jackals and chase them off, never to disgrace America, again.

Only then will America recover from traitorous Trumpism, and prove to ourselves and to the world, that we indeed are the world’s Shining City, deserving of worldwide admiration.

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

 

Help me. There must be a word for this.

Perhaps you can help me either find or invent a word for this.

Do you know of a word that means: The tactic of accusing and insulting someone for having a fault that you, yourself have even more extremely?

For example, Donald Trump referred to Ted Cruz as “lyin’ Ted.” There is ample evidence that Trump is one of the worst liars ever to run for political office.  (Being a worse liar than most politicians really says something. It’s like being the fattest pig in the pen or the loudest howler monkey in the jungle.)

While I don’t like Ted Cruz — he’s a mean-spirited SOB — he seems pretty honest about who he is, and surely doesn’t compare to Trump as a liar.

So for Trump to call Cruz a liar is: [The word needed here]

The closest thing I can think of is “ironic,” but it isn’t specific enough. Ironic can apply to all sorts of unexpected relationships. I’m looking for something more specific.

“The pot calling the kettle black” isn’t quite right. It’s not a word, and it implies that the pot and the kettle are equally black. I’m looking for a word that indicates the pot is much blacker than the kettle, but calls the kettle “black,” to divert attention from its own greater blackness.

Example: Trump refers to Hillary Clinton as “Crooked Hillary.” This, from the man who founded and profited from the outrageous scam operation known as “Trump University,” for which he is being sued and very well could be jailed.

Now, in truth, there always have been questions about Clinton’s finances, but the combination of Trump University and Trump’s failure to pay workers, and his cheating of creditors and boasting about it, surely exceeds any Clinton “crookedness.”

So, for  Trump to call Clinton “crooked” is [The word needed here]

Another example: Trump questions Clinton’s health.

She provided a real medical report from a real doctor. Trump provided a fake report from a gastro guy who claims to be a Fellow at the American College of Gastroenterology. Except he hasn’t paid his fellowship dues for 20 years, and the FACG wishes he would stop making the false claim.

So that isn’t exactly irony, because irony usually is unexpected, and the fact that Trump submits a faked letter from a doctor who provides a fake credential is completely expected. Birds of a feather, you know.

While no 69-year-old woman is in “perfect” health, for an overweight, 70 year-old-man, who turns in a fake health report, to question her health is  [The word needed here]

Similarly, Trump said Clinton is a bigot, who is interested only in black votes, not  in black people.

This from a guy who calls Mexicans “criminals and rapists,” wants to bar all Muslims from America, and who selected Mike Pence, known for his tough, anti- LBGTQ stance.

And it was Trump who tweeted, “Dwayne Wade’s cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!” 

Talk about being interested only in black votes. A murder elicits that tweet?

Trump is the gun lover who has been endorsed by the NRA and (according to Breitbart) “opposes universal background checks, assault weapons bans, high-capacity magazine bans,and gun-free zones.” Trump even wanted guns in bars and night clubs.

In short, for a guy who has based his entire campaign on bigotry, to call anyone else a bigot, is  [The word needed here]

It’s far more than mere irony. It’s far more than merely the pot calling the kettle “black.”

It’s an attack method to deflect attention from his own faults, so that his followers will use the “They both are” defense.

If a Clinton fan points out that Trump is a bigot, a Trump defender can say Clinton is a worse bigot, to deflect attention from Trump’s bigotry.  “They both are bigots,” or “She’s worse,” is the response.

But while she may or may not have some bigotry in her heart, Trump is a real, major-league B-I-G-O-T, and that makes all the difference.

Trump, the scammer, tweeted that Marco Rubio, “is scamming Florida.”
Trump, the liar, said that reporter Jeff Horwitz, “wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him in the face.”
Trump, who has articulated no strategy re. ISIS, said to Megyn Kelly, “You have no idea what my strategy on ISIS is.”
Trump, who sees nothing wrong with nuclear bombing terrorists, called Charles Krauthammer, “an Iraq war-monger.”

There are many more examples, but to make the point, here is a final one: Trump says he himself is tough, and former POW Senator John McCain was not a hero, despite McCain having been tortured and even having refused freedom if his fellow POWs weren’t freed.

This from Trump, who ducked the military draft with the phony claim of a “heel spur” (that subsequently and miraculously healed all on its own.)

For a draft dodger to claim McCain is no hero is perfect example of  [The word needed here]

What is the best word to mean: “Deriding an opponent for having your flaws”?

“Phony” is accurate, but not specific to the circumstance. The same is true of “ironic.”

“Chutzpah,” “gall,” and “nerve” are in the right genre, but not really addressing the evil selfishness, and damaging, clownish incompetence of a Donald Trump.

So, if a word doesn’t exist, perhaps you can invent one.

Or maybe the word simply is “trumpism.”

What do you think?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich afford better health care than the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE AN ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONEFive reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefiting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-tranferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and corporate taxes would be an good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Why I hope Trump wins the Republican nomination

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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Where did it begin? With Karl Rove? George W. Bush? Newt Gingrich? The Tea Party?

Somewhere along the line, the self-proclaimed patriotic, self-proclaimed religious Republican party lost its patriotism, lost its religion, and lost its morality.

The Republicans were not to cooperate to benefit America. For the right-wing, politics became a vicious war, and winning became the obsession.

The biggest story of the past fifty years in American politics has been the ascendancy of the right, and it’s a story of apostasy. George Packer, “Turned Around,” The New Yorker, February 22, 2016

Then came Barack Obama. In reality, he’s just another DINO (Democrat in name only). He’s more conservative than liberal, more Tea Party than Democrat, more pro-rich than pro-poor.

He espouses the Big Lie that federal financing is just like personal financing, that the federal government can run short of dollars to pay its bills, and that federal deficits are “unsustainable.”

Obama signed into law the infamous Budget Control Act of 2011 which led to the outrageous “sequester.” He sold the act to the public as a way to prevent a mythical sovereign default, because of the unnecessary 2011 debt-ceiling crisis.

Obama spoke of “hope,” then deported more hopeful immigrants than any President in American history.

And it was all for naught. Obama’s craven pandering to the Republicans and the rich failed like craven pandering always does — just as his craven pandering to Arab terrorism failed to bring peace.

The Republicans (and the terrorists) saw Obama’s weakness and smelled blood in the water.

The Republican goal became not one of building America, nor of helping Americans, but rather of tearing down everything Obama. The Republicans became the party of obstruction, and in doing so, the Republicans also became the party of hatred, a dark, brooding menace on the polical landscape.

They broadcast hatred for gays, for immigrants, for women seeking abortion, hatred for unions, for Muslims, the poor, Latinos, the aged, blacks, those who want any form of gun control, hatred for non-Christians, those who believe in evolution, those who believe in human-caused global warming, those wanting pollution controls, embryo research, peaceful negotiation rather than war, and of course, hatred for anything Obama.

And now we have that political party, so alienated from American morality, it refuses to participate in the American political system. Republicans will not even consider the credentials of any Supreme Court candidate, no matter how qualified, if submitted by Obama.

As the inevitable result of moral abandonment came Donald Trump, the ultimate caricature of Republican contempt for compassion.

If Republicans despised immigrants, Trump would detest them more. He will deport 11 million.

If Republicans despised foreigners, Trump would detest them more. He will build a colossal wall and create fortress America.

If Republicans were bigots, Trump would be the greater bigot. In Trump-world, Mexicans became “rapists and criminals,” and “Islam hated America.”

If Republicans admired guns, Trump would adore guns. He says, “The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own.” (Everyone to have a machine gun?)

Trump claims global warming is a hoax. He claims deficit spending (which primarily helps the middle and lower incomes) must be cut. He wants to freeze green cards and to end constitutionally provided birthright citizenship. Trump University is only one of his many shameful business legacies. Trying to steal a widow’s home was business as usual.

Trump tells you the U.S. “should look and act tough.” But, he is a bully and bullies are cowards.

He wants to send our young people to fight and die for oil drilling areas, though he did everything possible to stay safely out of the military.

Now, he swaggers to his podium, affects a fierce face, and points at those who disagree with him, snarling “Get ’em outa here. Get ’em outa here.”

Mr. Tough Guy.

In short, he tells us to be bullies just like him. He wants us to be a xenophobic, cowardly, aggressive, hateful America. That is his slogan, his how he plans to “make America great, again.”

And that is why I hope he becomes the Republican candidate.

For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

The Republicans have sown the wind of hatred, and they have reaped Donald Trump. While the Republican party may have become stupid and mean-spirited enough to nominate him, I doubt very much that the American public is Trump-stupid and Trump-mean enough to elect him.

The world is filled with little, rotten, imperious governments, run by little, rotten, imperious martinets. This is not America.

With Trump as a candidate, Americans will have a wonderful opportunity this November to tell the world: “We are not a nation of haters and bigots. We are not a fearful, exclusionary, white-only, Christian-only, male-only nation groveling before the rich and powerful.

We are a giving, charitable, loving nation, comfortable enough in our great strength to welcome the tired, the poor, the homeless, the hungry, and the ‘huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'”

Rather than following the false words, “Make America great, again” (We already are great), we can make America the ideal again, the country the rest of the world wishes to emulate, not just for our money and our military, but for our morals.

Millions of people, all colors and all beliefs, have poured across our borders for more than 200 years. The blending of genes strengthened America’s genes.

Those who already had arrived showed the courage to welcome the strange ideas and the unfamiliar customs of our new arrivals, not with a wall, but with open hearts. We were the golden land, embracing strangers and helping them achieve the American dream.

And that is how we created the greatest, most powerful nation the world ever has known.

But sometimes, even here in America, we need a reminder about who we are, and how being inclusive and welcoming and compassionate have made us admired.

So go ahead, Republicans. Bring it on. Nominate Trump and give us Americans the podium from which we will reject Trumpism and show the world why we still are America the beautiful.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

 

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Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually Click here
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
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10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Recessions begin an average of 2 years after the blue line first dips below zero. A common phenomenon is for the line briefly to dip below zero, then rise above zero, before falling dramatically below zero. There was a brief dip below zero in 2015, followed by another dip – the familiar pre-recession pattern.
Recessions are cured by a rising red line.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

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Mitchell’s laws:
•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.
•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.

Liberals 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 rich and the rest..
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening
the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY