Are the Dems willing to learn? What will it take?

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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In the publication, This Week, Ryan Cooper wrote:

The big lesson of Ossoff’s defeat is that Democrats must run on policy 

I suggest that what Democrats need to do is sharply discount predictions about what sort of politics will play best, and proudly run on something substantive.

Oooh, “run on something substantive”? What a concept! Actually give voters real facts!

You wouldn’t know it, but when it comes to something substantive, the Dems hold all the cards:

1. There are far more middle-income and poor voters than rich voters.
2. Most progressive initiatives favor those middle-income and poor voters
3. By contrast, the conservatives have a record of favoring the few rich voters.

So what’s the problem?

1. The rich are better able to bribe the politicians than are the middle-income and poor.
2. The rich also are better able to bribe the economists and the media.
3. Those bribes, over the years, have moved the Democrats from progressivism toward conservatism.

Thus, we endured a faux progressive President in Barack Obama, who repeatedly opted for social spending cuts and deficit cuts. Today, there are few-to-no progressive politicians, and any such will be labeled “socialists.” Our last progressive President was Lyndon Johnson.

And now we have arrived at today, from which we can look back and ask, “How did we get here?”

First, the Dems lost Congress, despite there being more of them registered as voters than the Republicans have.

Then, they lost the Presidency to a semi-literate, rich bigot, who was elected, in part, by the very people against whom he expressed his bigotry.

Most recently, the Dems spent mega-millions to lose in Georgia,  whose voters will lose most under Trumpcare.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, the perennial presidential loser, and a representative of the old Democratic style, continues to mouth off about Russia, the FBI, and hacking, which may be important to her, but don’t mean a damn thing to the voters.

So the question (or rather the questions) are:

1. Do the Democrats care?
2. Are the Democrats brave enough to tell the voters the truth?

Question #1 has to do with motivation.  If you are a leading Democrat in the Senate, you very likely are safe. Aside from being caught in bed with a sheep, you probably cannot lose your seat.

If you are a Democrat in the House, you probably have been elected via Gerrymandering, and are as locked in as a gold bar at Fort Knox.

In either case, you have yours, and they have theirs, and all’s well with the world. The boat will not be rocked by your hand.

For example, here in Illinois, we have a Democratic Senator named Durbin.  He was a House member from 1993-1997 and a Senator since 1997.  That’s 24 years in Congress and currently the senior Democratic Senator from a blue state.  You couldn’t pull him out of Congress with an 18-wheel truck.

Despite his 24 years, you might not have heard of him.  He keeps a very low profile, so low he scarcely comes up for air, at which time he whispers that he’s for all things good, and against all things evil. Then down he goes for another six years.

Do you think Durbin and all the other “Durbin’s” want to learn or do anything different? Not a chance. They have won for themselves by doing what they have been doing.  So they just sit back in that rocking chair and watch the votes come in.

But let’s say you’re one of those rare Democrats who not only cares about the Party, but also cares about the party’s traditional constituents, the men and women of the middle and lower income groups, the minorities and the underdogs.

You know the party needs to change its ways. You know you can’t be the party of the middle and the poor, and at the same time coddle the crooked bankers who caused the recession.

You know you can’t opt for “Medicare for All” while pretending the federal government needs to ration spending. You know you can’t provide the benefit without deficit spending or tax increases. (That was Bernie Sanders’s problem. He denied reality. He claimed he could pull ten pounds of potatoes from a five-pound bag. )

You know you must acknowledge the federal government’s unique and unlimited ability to create dollars while preventing inflation.

But, do you care enough to risk your Congressional seat? Do you care enough, knowing you’ll receive no help from the establishment Dems?  After all, look what they did to Bernie, and he wasn’t even revealing the truth that federal taxes don’t fund federal spending.

Now, my friend, Professor Stephanie Kelton, who understands Monetary Sovereignty, just wrote to me today. She continues her Quixotic effort to find, then teach, the one or two Democrats who might have the courage and the influence to change the trajectory of the formerly left-wing.

God bless her and keep her.

She tried with Bernie, indeed she tried with the whole Democratic Party just last year when she was the Senate’s official Democratic economist. As a result of her efforts, did you hear Bernie, or any other Democrat, say anything resembling, “The federal government cannot run short of dollars, so there is no reason to cut spending“?

No? Nor did I.

Did you hear a single Democrat say, “Federal deficit spending is necessary for economic growth“? Me, neither.

Still, Kelton tries; I’ll give her credit for persistence.

If the Democratic Party is composed solely of people who don’t care about progressivism, and/or are fat and comfortable in their seat, and/or are too stupid to learn or too cowardly to teach, and/or have no influence, what is the Party’s future?

Dire, I fear.

The Dem’s slide to the right makes them increasingly irrelevant,  a virtual GOP-Lite. The poor and the middle will see more Trumpcares, more tax base widenings, more bank regulation cuts, more taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

The title question is, “Are the Democrats willing to learn? What will it take?”

Facts won’t do it. Logic won’t do it. Charts and tables won’t do it.

I believe it will take a charismatic, widely respected, and influential leader, someone rich enough and brave enough to ignore the bankers, and smart enough to understand and defend Monetary Sovereignty,  a person who has true compassion for the poor and the middle.

Know anyone?

I don’t.

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 (Economic Bonus)) 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