Poverty statistics: Figures don’t lie, but the Heritage Foundation does

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Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive.
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The right-wing, Washington Times ran the following article. Here are some excerpts. Think about what this article is trying to sell you.

Washington Times
Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record
By Dave Boyer

Fifty years after President Johnson started a $20 trillion taxpayer-funded war on poverty, the overall percentage of impoverished people in the U.S. has declined only slightly and the poor have lost ground under President Obama.

Although the president often rails against income inequality in America, his policies have had little impact overall on poverty. A record 47 million Americans receive food stamps, about 13 million more than when he took office.

So obviously, those food stamps don’t do any good. Right? And it’s all Obama’s fault. Right again?

Read on.

About 50 million Americans live below the poverty line, which the federal government defined in 2012 as an annual income of $23,492 for a family of four.

President Obama’s anti-poverty efforts “are basically to give more people more free stuff,” said Robert Rector, a specialist on welfare and poverty at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Giving poor people “free stuff” doesn’t help them. Right?

(Oh, by the way, the Heritage Foundation is funded by the extreme right-wing rich, whose cure for poverty seems to depend on lower taxes for the wealthy and less regulation of wealthy corporations.)

Mr. Rector said the war on poverty has been a failure when measured by the overall amount of money spent and poverty rates that haven’t changed significantly since Johnson gave his speech.

“We’ve spent $20.7 trillion on means-tested aid since that time, and the poverty rate is pretty much exactly where it was in the mid-1960s,” he said.

O.K., we get it. Spending $20.7 was a waste of money. It hasn’t helped at all because the same number of people are in poverty. So we ought to stop giving poor people “free stuff.” Right?

Then there’s this from the Census Bureau:

How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty

The Census Bureau uses a set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine who is in poverty.

The official poverty thresholds do not vary geographically, but they are updated for inflation using Consumer Price Index (CPI-U).

So the same income — $23,492 for a family of four — defines poverty in Manhattan and poverty in Mississippi? Interesting to learn that it costs no more to live in America’s most expensive locations than in America’s least expensive locations.

But it gets even more interesting:

The official poverty definition uses money income before taxes and does not include capital gains or noncash benefits (such as public housing, Medicaid, and food stamps).

Get it? The spending to which the Heritage Foundation’s mouthpiece says does nothing to help the poor, is not even included in the definition of poverty.

Who is poorer? The family with an income of $23,492 that also receives free food stamps, free Medicaid and free housing, or the same family that does not receive this “free stuff”?

Clearly, the “free stuff” to which the Heritage Foundation objects is a huge benefit to the needy people receiving it.

That “free stuff” may prevent starvation, homelessness, sickness and death. But the Heritage Foundation seems not to care about the poor. These mean-spirited guys send out liars like Rector to tell America food stamps don’t work; free housing doesn’t work; Medicaid doesn’t work — and while we’re at it, let’s cut unemployment compensation, Social Security, Medicare and every other aid to the poor and middle classes, while “broadening the tax base.”

The cruelty of the wealthy liars is beyond comprehension. While the rich lounge on yachts, millions of people suffer on scaps, but even that suffering isn’t sufficient. The rich want to take away the scraps.

They paint the poor as lazy freeloaders, who would rather do nothing than work for a living. It’s a cruel lie, but the cold-hearted among us eagerly buy into that lie.

If a nation is measured by its treatment of its less fortunate, then America is diminishing. The fault lies not only with the rich, but even more so with the fools who believe their lies.

And the irony: Those federal benefits don’t cost anyone anything. In our Monetarily Sovereign nation, taxpayers don’t pay for federal spending.

In short, those who object to the “free stuff” that keeps people alive, don’t even pay for the “free stuff.”

How stupid is that?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Nine 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. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (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
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

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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

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY