The key to the rise of neoliberalism in America begins with a mass delusion in macro-economics. The people were made to wrongly believe that their government, the monopoly issuer of the nation’s money, functions just like their personal budget and spending process. This has caused the decline of all services the government provides for the economy and social well being in the mistaken quest to “save” money at the federal level.
People believe that if their government spends less it leaves more in the private sector via a diminished demand for revenue to “pay for” its functions. Not only is this not how macro-economics works at the federal level but is exactly the opposite of our monetary reality. As the sole and monopoly Constitutionally authorized creator of the US dollar, our government never needs revenue to enable spending for the public purpose. This power also makes it the price setter in the economy that is able to “afford” anything that is for sale and priced in US dollars.
Politicians, including Bernie, are critically aware of the need to cater to the assumptions of the voters, especially those which are reinforced via the media and “experts”. He understands that one can’t pay for anything by removing money from the economy, but knows he can’t articulate that in a Presidential campaign when it runs so contrary to popular opinion. To reconcile this, he has a ready-made list of unpopular people and entities that have a lot of money that they probably shouldn’t have and he kills two birds with one stone. However, he has no delusions about taxing Jeff Bezos to pay for single-payer healthcare or taxing all wealthy individuals and corporations to pay for his green new deal.
When the government spends “new” money (deficit) into the economy it becomes someone’s asset in the private sector by accounting identity. Trump understands this, which is why he is not shy about blowing up the deficit to enrich his oligarch white-nationalist counterparts. However, to admit that we are only constrained by our real resources, not dollars, would take away much of the support for their agenda offered by misinformed voters who fear that “their” tax dollars would be spent on the “undeserving” among us, who are most often defined via their skin color or national origins.
Who, other than the vilest of racists, would support caging and imposing extreme hardship and death on children if they understood that doing so is not an economic or security issue, but simply a political decision? Who would deny healthcare to their neighbors, increasing the threat to all of us and killing 30,000 of us yearly, if they knew it doesn’t have to be “paid for” beyond Congress deciding to end the misery that is our single greatest national disgrace? Who can make the argument that we “can’t afford” to reconfigure out energy and resource use to secure the future of mankind on this earth when the money is available in infinite supply to mitigate our damage? Who but the extremely privileged would deny the people full employment guaranteed by their own government to preserve the status quo of wealth distribution?
