I think that running for congress in order join he millionaires club is Americas problem with Congress. Citizens United and Insider Trading exemptions for Congress need repair. No repair means no fixing the breaking apart America by children pretending to be adults who read Atlas Shrugged and believed that little people were worthless,
When coming up with the amount of money spent on SS, does that amount take into account that we have had money taken out of our checks to provide the money for a payout for our retirement? Does that amount include the peoples contributions?
No it's not offset by payroll taxes. That is just the raw nominal amount we've spent on various categories. The Social Security Trust was used to fund other programs and numerous tax cuts. The trust holds about 2.7 trillion in debt from the Fed. I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting that Social Security should be cut, nor that the retirement age should be raised. I am simply saying that neither party is trying to solve the issues so much as they are just hoping things keep going "ok"
Much of what you claim is incorrect. The "trust fund" is invested in Treasury instruments and therefore included in your debt figure. Simple question, if the US is the sole creator of dollars why would we ever need to borrow dollars?
Right, social security is self funded and doesn't contribute to the national "debt". Not part of the deficit problem, which if you follow Modern Monetary Theory isn't really a problem in itself.
Thanks for your engagement with this subject, Corbin. However, there are several flaws. You mention the transfer of wealth, but do not account for it. Consequently, stating how much is spent is (almost) worthless without showing how much should have been collected to offset the $100 trillion in spending. How much was spent to cover the enormous exclusive taxbreaks during your study period. Social Security spending, for example, is balanced by employees paying in, and those collecting SS are simply withdrawing an amount to which they and their employers paid into the system. They are not the burden, the military and so-called defense spending are burdens, as are the exclusive elite taxbreaks received by a small percentage of taxpayers. I'd like a more expansive view on this subject.
There were numerous class war battles fought during the Gilded Age and the Depression, and although we on the Left like to think we won many of those hard-fought battles, in reality, we won nothing more than mere crumbs while the country's 1% took much of the cake. That storyline has persisted throughout our recent history and will be exacerbated under the Trump Regime as it digs in, dismantles government, and the 1% (including members of Congress) profit from corruption. The Left has a real opportunity to change that storyline under this Regime, but the Democratic Party can't (or won't) provide the leadership needed to facilitate that change. They seem increasingly content with waiting for the mid-term elections and hoping for a win. Meanwhile, their base is increasingly hurting and screaming for real (read: revolutionary) change. We know how this is going to end. We've seen it numerous times throughout history: Royalty prevails, and the peasants suffer. Well, if they're going to treat us as peasants, we should revolt like peasants. Pitchforks and torches. Join the General Strike movement: generalstrikeus.com.
You laid out a roadmap! The answers are there. The 90% has been paying forever. It's time for the millionaires and billionaires to pay. We have to get rid of the money in politics. Maybe starting with corporate lobbies, after eliminating Citizen's United: code for rape the little guy (and 90% of us are little guys).
17% on national defense is obscene. We did the moon shot program for less than 10% of the gdp. Military spending is always untouchable because the defense contractors made sure that pieces and parts are made in all 50 states.
Then Medicare and Medicaid expenses, I recent 30 minute out patient procedure was billed to Medicare for $44,500.
I get many calls a week about “free” Medicare benefits, usually braces and slings that are marked up by 500%. They want to cut waste, they have to get the costs charged to the system under control.
One of the main reasons for MFA would be the ability to control costs over common procedures. An American company designed the Japanese healthcare system. All prices are in plain view in the offices. The doctors compete on quality of service rather than just how many patients they can see an hour.
America is not what it was 50 years ago. I know because I watched it decline. We used to have services, even as simple as an attendant in a store. I remember when airline stewardesses served meals, snacks, and drinks the whole flight, and were friendly while doing so. There were phone operators. Gas pump attendants. And no homeless people. I could go on, but it's endless how the US has sunk. I live between the US and Ecuador. The US seems more third world than Ecuador now, unlike 50 years ago. Our politicians f#c#ed this country. Both parties are to blame. It's a uniparty—one big club that we don't belong to, as G. Carlin said.
"The debt crisis isn’t a distant threat anymore—it’s here," tells me all I need to know about your understanding of US fiscal spending. You need to better understand how our federal government fiscally operates- because you need to. Look up Bernie Sanders' former Economics Advisor, Dr. Stephanie Kelton's The Deficit Myth (a NYT Best Seller) and her documentary "Finding the Money" can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrje-m01kI8&list=PL_b37gS9bTWlNuk5m9m_AFNSbn1sy2tPs&index=17
Something is breakING? Seems to me it's already damned well broken. Mostly, anyway. Nothing gets done without somebody being able to grift off of it. Nothing. This level of corruption would be no surprise at all to one Karl Marx.
Regardless, you're right about building things. This country once had the largest merchant marine in the world, and the safest. There's a start for you right there. Booming shipyards create jobs, lots and lots of jobs.
Can you write about the effect of climate change on our country including the probable influx of refugees and the astronomical cost of repairing the damage caused by changes in the climate? The guesstimates are out there for the possible devastating expenses.
“We need a system that’s built to deliver care, not extract profit.”
… if the term “care” includes the needs of the economy, country, and citizenry as a whole, the above statement encapsulates the entirety of the problem — and its solution.
As alluded to elsewhere in the article, the problem is not the sheer level of federal spending (“debt”), but rather what the funds are being used for. Are they creating actual value and meeting the needs of the country or are they largely further enriching those who already have too much money?
The majority of people seem to have trouble understanding the distinction between federal debt versus consumer and commercial debt. The latter are loans that must be repaid, whereas the former is simply our national money supply (since we have a debt-based currency system). Such debt is issued in budgetary cycles and is ideally recovered through taxation, so that the next spending cycle can proceed. (Taxation does not “fund the government”; it retires existing debt-money so that new money can be issued without triggering inflation.) Were the federal debt to be entirely eliminated, there would be no circulating money (except for the 3% that exists as coins and bills).
While federal debt itself is not necessarily a problem, the “deficit” *is*. In each budgetary cycle, if we don’t recover enough of the prior debt-currency, the next spending cycle inflates the money supply — along with all of the attendant problems.
In this light, it should be obvious that tax cuts for those who already have more money than could reasonably be spent in dozens of lifetimes, will only explode our social and economic problems. Solution: progressive taxation - perhaps even a cap on private wealth.
I think that running for congress in order join he millionaires club is Americas problem with Congress. Citizens United and Insider Trading exemptions for Congress need repair. No repair means no fixing the breaking apart America by children pretending to be adults who read Atlas Shrugged and believed that little people were worthless,
When coming up with the amount of money spent on SS, does that amount take into account that we have had money taken out of our checks to provide the money for a payout for our retirement? Does that amount include the peoples contributions?
No it's not offset by payroll taxes. That is just the raw nominal amount we've spent on various categories. The Social Security Trust was used to fund other programs and numerous tax cuts. The trust holds about 2.7 trillion in debt from the Fed. I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting that Social Security should be cut, nor that the retirement age should be raised. I am simply saying that neither party is trying to solve the issues so much as they are just hoping things keep going "ok"
Much of what you claim is incorrect. The "trust fund" is invested in Treasury instruments and therefore included in your debt figure. Simple question, if the US is the sole creator of dollars why would we ever need to borrow dollars?
Right, social security is self funded and doesn't contribute to the national "debt". Not part of the deficit problem, which if you follow Modern Monetary Theory isn't really a problem in itself.
Thanks for your engagement with this subject, Corbin. However, there are several flaws. You mention the transfer of wealth, but do not account for it. Consequently, stating how much is spent is (almost) worthless without showing how much should have been collected to offset the $100 trillion in spending. How much was spent to cover the enormous exclusive taxbreaks during your study period. Social Security spending, for example, is balanced by employees paying in, and those collecting SS are simply withdrawing an amount to which they and their employers paid into the system. They are not the burden, the military and so-called defense spending are burdens, as are the exclusive elite taxbreaks received by a small percentage of taxpayers. I'd like a more expansive view on this subject.
Your numbers don't seem to add up? The numbers fro what we spent our money on add up to some 96+ trillion dollars, not 50 trillion?
Thanks for 1) reading the whole piece 2) bringing that to my attention. I've corrected it. It oughta say $100 trillion.
There were numerous class war battles fought during the Gilded Age and the Depression, and although we on the Left like to think we won many of those hard-fought battles, in reality, we won nothing more than mere crumbs while the country's 1% took much of the cake. That storyline has persisted throughout our recent history and will be exacerbated under the Trump Regime as it digs in, dismantles government, and the 1% (including members of Congress) profit from corruption. The Left has a real opportunity to change that storyline under this Regime, but the Democratic Party can't (or won't) provide the leadership needed to facilitate that change. They seem increasingly content with waiting for the mid-term elections and hoping for a win. Meanwhile, their base is increasingly hurting and screaming for real (read: revolutionary) change. We know how this is going to end. We've seen it numerous times throughout history: Royalty prevails, and the peasants suffer. Well, if they're going to treat us as peasants, we should revolt like peasants. Pitchforks and torches. Join the General Strike movement: generalstrikeus.com.
Get $$$ out of politics and you'll see a change. I regret however, that's become a beast we cannot kill.
Social Security is self funded and does not contribute to the national debt.
You laid out a roadmap! The answers are there. The 90% has been paying forever. It's time for the millionaires and billionaires to pay. We have to get rid of the money in politics. Maybe starting with corporate lobbies, after eliminating Citizen's United: code for rape the little guy (and 90% of us are little guys).
If we had M4A and doctors and nurses were not working for insurance companies there might be plenty of them
100% public competition to this out-of-control private sector.
17% on national defense is obscene. We did the moon shot program for less than 10% of the gdp. Military spending is always untouchable because the defense contractors made sure that pieces and parts are made in all 50 states.
Then Medicare and Medicaid expenses, I recent 30 minute out patient procedure was billed to Medicare for $44,500.
I get many calls a week about “free” Medicare benefits, usually braces and slings that are marked up by 500%. They want to cut waste, they have to get the costs charged to the system under control.
One of the main reasons for MFA would be the ability to control costs over common procedures. An American company designed the Japanese healthcare system. All prices are in plain view in the offices. The doctors compete on quality of service rather than just how many patients they can see an hour.
America is not what it was 50 years ago. I know because I watched it decline. We used to have services, even as simple as an attendant in a store. I remember when airline stewardesses served meals, snacks, and drinks the whole flight, and were friendly while doing so. There were phone operators. Gas pump attendants. And no homeless people. I could go on, but it's endless how the US has sunk. I live between the US and Ecuador. The US seems more third world than Ecuador now, unlike 50 years ago. Our politicians f#c#ed this country. Both parties are to blame. It's a uniparty—one big club that we don't belong to, as G. Carlin said.
Does anyone ever talk about raising taxes instead of cut,cut, cut?
"The debt crisis isn’t a distant threat anymore—it’s here," tells me all I need to know about your understanding of US fiscal spending. You need to better understand how our federal government fiscally operates- because you need to. Look up Bernie Sanders' former Economics Advisor, Dr. Stephanie Kelton's The Deficit Myth (a NYT Best Seller) and her documentary "Finding the Money" can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrje-m01kI8&list=PL_b37gS9bTWlNuk5m9m_AFNSbn1sy2tPs&index=17
Something is breakING? Seems to me it's already damned well broken. Mostly, anyway. Nothing gets done without somebody being able to grift off of it. Nothing. This level of corruption would be no surprise at all to one Karl Marx.
Regardless, you're right about building things. This country once had the largest merchant marine in the world, and the safest. There's a start for you right there. Booming shipyards create jobs, lots and lots of jobs.
Can you write about the effect of climate change on our country including the probable influx of refugees and the astronomical cost of repairing the damage caused by changes in the climate? The guesstimates are out there for the possible devastating expenses.
“We need a system that’s built to deliver care, not extract profit.”
… if the term “care” includes the needs of the economy, country, and citizenry as a whole, the above statement encapsulates the entirety of the problem — and its solution.
As alluded to elsewhere in the article, the problem is not the sheer level of federal spending (“debt”), but rather what the funds are being used for. Are they creating actual value and meeting the needs of the country or are they largely further enriching those who already have too much money?
The majority of people seem to have trouble understanding the distinction between federal debt versus consumer and commercial debt. The latter are loans that must be repaid, whereas the former is simply our national money supply (since we have a debt-based currency system). Such debt is issued in budgetary cycles and is ideally recovered through taxation, so that the next spending cycle can proceed. (Taxation does not “fund the government”; it retires existing debt-money so that new money can be issued without triggering inflation.) Were the federal debt to be entirely eliminated, there would be no circulating money (except for the 3% that exists as coins and bills).
While federal debt itself is not necessarily a problem, the “deficit” *is*. In each budgetary cycle, if we don’t recover enough of the prior debt-currency, the next spending cycle inflates the money supply — along with all of the attendant problems.
In this light, it should be obvious that tax cuts for those who already have more money than could reasonably be spent in dozens of lifetimes, will only explode our social and economic problems. Solution: progressive taxation - perhaps even a cap on private wealth.