RRPP: Reward the Rich; Punish the Poor. The GOP doctrine

(Before It's News)

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

As readers of this site know, the primary financial goal of the rich is to widen the Gap between the rich and the rest.

It is the Gap that makes them rich. Without the Gap, no one would be rich — we all would be the same — and the wider the Gap, the richer they are.

For the rich, depriving you of money is just as important as taking more money for themselves. The result is the same. The Gap widens. The rich grow richer.

When you see arguments against federal support for the poor and middle-income groups, understand that these are mere disguises for making the rich richer. That is what widening the Gap does.

The Big Lie (that our Monetarily Sovereign government’s deficits and debt are “unsustainable”) is based on the desire by the rich to widen the Gap.

The truth: The U.S. federal government never can run short of dollars, never can find any spending “unsustainable,” and has total control over inflation. The rich do not want you to understand what Monetary Sovereignty means.

The rich want you to become part of a large supply of desperate people, willing to work hard jobs for starvation wages.

THE TRUMP BUDGET:

A website called “News.Mic” published their estimates of what the latest Trump/Republican budget would do to widen the Gap.  As you read this summary, visualize who voted for Trump and how his budget would affect them:

1. Increase military spending $54 billion.
2. Spend an extra $4.1 Billion for his border wall
3. Cut $9.2 billion — or 13.5 percent — from the Education Department’s budget, to reduce or eliminate grants for teacher training, after-school programs and aid to ­low-income and first-generation college students.
4. Shift $1.4 billion to charter schools and private school vouchers.
5. Cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 31%, costing 2,300 employees their jobs, while opening the door for increased global warming.
6. Cut $100 million in spending on research and international programs on combating climate change.
7. The Washington Post provides the following list of agencies that would disappear. You may recognize some of them:
8. Cut the State Department 28.5%. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, “the level of spending that the State Department has been undertaking … is simply not sustainable.”
9. Cut $6 billion from the National Institutes of Health, which could cripple important scientific research that requires NIH funding, which could decimate biomedical research in a number of areas and stagger academic institutions around the country that depend on NIH grant money to keep their scientific research programs afloat.
10. Overall, cut $15.1 billion cut from the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as Medicare and Medicaid.
11. Cut 13.2% from the Housing and Urban Development department, and eliminate the Community Development Block Grant Program, which helps fund Meals on Wheels (the service for people age 60+that are homebound and unable to cook or shop for themselves).
12. Cut 21% from the Department of Agriculture, which would hurt farmers and rural communities.
13. Cut $2.5 billion from the Labor department. Job training programs — including those aimed at helping seniors, disadvantaged young people and unemployed Americans.

In all, budgets for 14 agencies (including NASA, Transportation, Education, Justice, and Labor) would be cut.

Only three agencies would receive more: Veterans Affairs ($1.4 billion), Homeland Security ($0.8 billion), and Defense ($52.3 billion).

If you were to summarize the thrust of Trump’s budget, it would be: Reward the Rich (especially defense contractors) and Punish the Poor.

RRPP.

As you know, the excuse for this Gap-widening exercise always is the typical line: “The federal government’s deficit spending is ‘unsustainable.’” The federal government, which creates U.S. dollars ad hoc, by spending, supposedly will run short of its own sovereign currency (aka The Big Lie).

You who voted for Trump, but now see him for the fraud he is, and who now regret your vote — you are to be congratulated for recognizing fact. It takes courage and character to admit one’s mistakes.

You who voted for Trump, but refuse to admit your mistake, and still support Trump — well I predict you folks will get something you didn’t bargain for — and it will hurt.

To use Trump’s favorite Twitter word: Sad.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.

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 (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 can afford better health care than can 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 A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Guaranteed Income)) 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 EVERYONE Five 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 benefitting 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 FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce 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 business taxes would be a 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

• Paul Krugman: Conservative Fantasies, Colliding With Reality
• Links for 03-17-06
• Bloomberg: Trump’s budget illustrated in a simple graph, 80 programs lose federal (taxpayer) funding (INFOGRAPHIC)
• Rand Paul escalates war with John McCain: ‘Past his prime … unhinged’
• 600+ companies are bidding to build Trump’s ‘border wall’ — including one from Mexico
• Trump Budget Proposes Killing All Funding for PBS, NPR and National Endowment for the Arts
• How do We Reduce Misery Caused by Poverty Around the World?
• An Orgy of Unnecessary Cruelty
• Thank goodness you have someone to protect your children’s future
• America’s Two-Track Economy