Debt Limit Dishonesty

 In Stephanie Kelton's book, The Deficit Myth, she pointed out that the notion that the government should be run like a household or a business is incorrect. First, government serves a special function in society that is not equivalent to a household or business. It serves the people and provides vital services for communities. This is true at the federal level as well. Government does not exist for the purpose of profit like businesses do. It is also not on a simple budget with income and expenses. Government budgets are more complicated because the government, at the Federal level, creates and issues the currency. And so if the Federal government shows debt on its books, that's not necessarily a bad thing like it might be for an individual or family.

Why is government debt a good thing? Since the Federal government is the issuer of the currency, then it follows that its spending is not taxpayer funded (that's a myth). The government creates the currency, and then disperses it to various entities. If the government has debt, that means the currency is in the public domain and can be used by others for various projects/activities. Treasury bonds are sold as a means of covering the debt. The US government hasn't borrowed money from some mythical evil lender. It has "borrowed" the money from itself. The increase in the currency supply is simply an entry in a digital ledger.

Debt is likely the wrong term to use because it implies something that isn't really happening. It would be better to think of this concept as money in circulation. If that number gets too high, it could be a problem, but that depends on a number of other complex factors. Needless to say, the US government isn't at a point in which there is too much money in the overall supply.

The arguments over the debt limit are disingenuous and dishonest. The government is not a household and it is not a business. Households and businesses don't issue currency, so they have to operate under different rules than the US Government. But politicians either know this or they're just plain stupid. The term government debt has been part of the public lexicon so long that it is hard to change the conversation about it. The idea that the current debt is something we are passing on to future generations to pay back is complete bullshit. There will always be debt, if you want to use that term. It's how the government operates. By the way, notice how these same politicians seem to have no concern about passing a climate disaster on to future generations. That's how you know they have no concern about the children of the future. The debt is simply a political weapon to bargain for spending cuts and tax cuts (how do tax cuts help the debt???).

Why do conservatives want spending cuts? That's a good question, and it has nothing to do with reducing the debt because they don't care about the debt (Notice how the Federal deficit always increases more under Republican administrations than it does under Democratic ones - why is that?). To answer the question of why Republicans want spending cuts, take a look at what gets cut. It's never the military. It's almost always programs designed to help people. They are the so called "entitlement" programs for those "other" people that are frequently on the chopping block. By cutting these programs, the demand for them is not decreased, but instead, that demand can now be shifted to the private sector in which a profit can be made. In other words, spending cuts enable the privatization of key services that the government has been fulfilling for decades. Any government spending on these programs will then be coordinated through private entities. This is similar to how private contractors engage with the military now. The government will become more of a cash cow for corporate America. That's how conservatives see government spending - not as something incurring debt, but rather a large pool of money that they would like to get their hands on and use to generate larger and larger profits. That's what would happen if Social Security is cut and then privatized. The big banks would then be in charge of that large pool of money which they could use for a variety of purposes with no real guarantee for citizens that they will have to pay out benefits. 

So, the debt limit discussion has nothing to do with the debt. It has everything to do with shifting more and more money into the hands of large banks, large corporations, and the oligarchs of our society. As usual, the average voter doesn't realize this and is instead triggered by the word debt. They react to the notion that the government needs to control its spending, especially on social programs and other fluff like education. Military and police budgets are never put on the table. Those budgets always seem to be able to find new cash - where do you think that comes from?

The next time you see politicians decrying the debt situation, know that they are full of shit. Whatever deal they reach, you will likely end up being worse off (unless you are an oligarch, then congratulations are in order).

Snowflakes

 It's ironic that the people in the US who decry those to their left as snowflakes infected by woke-ism are the biggest snowflakes of all. Has there ever been a more fragile generation? From the thin-skinned politicians like Trump and DeSantis to conservative pundits to your average MAGA obsessed groupie, they can't handle any whiff of criticism of their "way of life." Their default answer is to act out with vitriol and cruelty. There is always a bogeyman in the conservative sphere. In the past it was blacks, and then gays. Now it's black people again and trans people. The necessity of the bogeyman in the discussion points to the necessity of vilifying the "other" - the one who is not like "us." For conservatives cannot bring themselves to embrace the whole of humanity. They need to feel special; they need to feed that part of their ego. That's why they're white supremacists. They have an egoistic need to feel better than others or else they might realize that they are just like everyone else.

You can see this need to feel superior in everything they do. They deny others their human rights. They demand everyone subscribe to their version of morality. They enact legislation preventing other people from voting. Conservatives are so threatened by the idea of a diverse society that they are fighting it to their literal deaths. So many of these conservatives are old and white, and will be gone and forgotten in a few years. They are in their death throes, but while they are still here, their goal seems to be to make the US a living hell for everyone else. 

One thing your average conservative voters cannot see is that they are pawns in the struggle for money and power. Because conservatives have such a strong need to be right and to have their way of life validated as the best, they are easily manipulated into anger by politicians who actually know better. Want to mobilize voters on the right? Create a faux controversy like a migrant caravan, trouble at the border, gay marriage, abortion, trans rights, Sharia law (remember that one?!), or the specter of socialism on the rise. None of these issues represent any sort of threat to white conservative voters, but they are presented as existential threats to their way of life. They're not. Although they are real issues affecting real people, the answer isn't to outlaw or deny people their rights because you don't agree with them. This is why conservatives are snowflakes. They can't tolerate disagreement with their worldview. They react emotionally in Pavlov-ian fashion - completely conditioned. There is no rational thought occurring because their threat detector is on high alert. Paranoia and doom rule their minds. It's sad to see people who are generally good and ordinary turned into paranoid and hateful folks who are making the US a more dangerous place to live with each successive day.