How did I know the first comment would center around “payfors”? Perhaps because that is the common go-to answer for all legislation that benefits the people and not just the 1%. Thinking in zero-sum terms for the monopoly issuer of the nation’s currency is absurd and is what is holding us back from remaining competitive in the world and forcing us to function with infrastructure that, in many cases, dates to the ‘40s.
This misrepresentation of federal finance, positing that the government is a competing user of the dollars and must “get” them from the private sector is not simply misguided thinking, it is a major part of a long term plan to create a “market” for every aspect and basic essential of American life. If it doesn’t make a profit for a corporation, now mistakenly labeled as “job creator” then it doesn’t stand a chance of becoming a reality. Only because it resonates with everything we learn about finances in our life as currency “users” has it managed to dominate our political system.
People who make money from having money aren’t so deluded, regardless of what they claim. They can’t be and keep their wealth, but they damn sure want us to believe it and vote for politicians who will protect “our money”, which simply means won’t vote for anything we don’t want to pay for. Here’s the secret they don’t want us to understand. “WE” don’t have any money that wasn’t created first by Congress when it spends into the private sector, and funding the government is not, and cannot be, the purpose of taxation. Simple logic should tell us that one cannot collect or borrow what doesn’t yet exist.
Climate change presents every bit as much danger to our society as did Hitler’s fascism in WWII, and we should treat it as such. We must, or our species won’t survive. Does anyone think that FDR “paid for” his plans that mitigated the great depression and also ramped up production to fight WWII at a time when no one had money? Of course he didn’t, but he also didn’t attempt to teach the general population macroeconomics, just as Bernie is not completely honest when he answers the “pay for” questions.
Take note that his target for taxation is always those who should be taxed heavily simply because they have so damn much money that they threaten our democratic process and corrupt our government and media. He knows we can’t pay for, and never have, the big expenses of our federal government. He also knows banks and business can only shuffle around money created by Congress between winners and losers. Check your bank account to see which you are. Taxing an entity or product you wish to eliminate to “fund” anything is also not a good long term plan, as your success will create failure.
Bernie has a long history with his economic advisor, Dr. Stephanie Kelton, and she is a proponent of Modern Monetary Theory. MMT is an accurate description of how governments create and destroy money and the processes involved in that. It doesn’t claim we can spend endlessly, but it does inform us that the government can “afford” anything that exists and is for sale priced in dollars including any excess labor the private sector rejects, even without revenue. The monopoly issuer of the currency, Congress, never “needs” our money to spend, but it does need us to need its money, which is the primary function of taxation. You don’t, and can’t, fund your government. Your government funds you.
Dr. Kelton has been in demand as a consultant for everyone from the Senate Budget committee to Wall St to other nation’s central banks, but is advising Bernie because he “gets it” and understands that our outdated gold standard thinking and processes aren’t up to the task ahead of America. Many of her lectures are available on video at YouTube, and I would suggest anyone who is serious about economics or climate change search for them there and attempt to learn without the automatic filters we all have been programmed to utilize. It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for certain that just ain’t so.
