Election years stir the cauldrons of right-wing ideologues.  This year is no different.  With malice aforethought, they lie, cheat, steal, pardon, hire, fire, and act like nobody notices anything at all going on around them.  They really believe that you and I are stupid.  For starters, they want to take credit for the state of the economy.  So, let’s set the record straight about who does what about the economy.

 

The Good Guys.  The Federal Reserve is our central bank.  They control monetary policy.  That means they keep the correct amount of new money flowing into the economy, and  they adjust short-term interest rates to assure full employment and low inflation.  They are independent from Congress and the White House.  With more than 300 Ph.D. economists on the payroll, they comprise one of the most obscure and best research teams in the world. 

 

So, first, let’s give credit where it’s due.  The Fed works for you and me.  In the past three years they have done a magnificent job of keeping the economy growing, while bringing down unemployment from 4.1 percent to 3.5 percent,  and by keeping prices in check with a modest 2.0 rate of inflation. 

 

If you are working, thank the Fed. 

If your family and friends are working, thank the Fed. 

If you like the way the economy is purring, thank the Fed. 

If you like the increases in your 401(k), your IRA, or your private investments, thank the Fed. 

 

Just go to this link.  It has a picture of each Fed economist with his/her job title.   None is a politician.  They just keep the economy running. 

 

 

Now here is the truth about those who are taking you to the cleaners.

 

The Bad Boys.  Donald Trump and all his appointees had nothing positive whatsoever to do with our economy.  Nada.  Zilch.  Zero.   On the contrary, they’ve wrung it dry and then some.  They applied tariffs to imports while starting a trade war; they blew a $1.9 trillion hole in our federal budget with huge tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy; they eliminated the inheritance tax on inheritances over $5 million; they canceled  safety net regulations on our financial institutions; they weakened and removed consumer protections; and they put more barriers in the paths of the poor and the middle class that block their aspirations for social mobility by cutting programs created to relieve the pain created by the cuts. 

 

Here is what Trump et al. actually achieved.  By eliminating the inheritance tax, (all unearned wealth) they locked into place the final step in assuring that those at the top—and their families—stay there, while keeping you and me away from ever becoming a member of that elite club.  This group currently owns $102 trillion of our $113 trillion total wealth.  At a 7.2% compound growth rate, their total holdings double every 10 years.  It’s like a perpetual machine that sucks up 90 percent of all the wealth created by 155 million workers and dumps it at the feet of the ultra-wealthy.  It’s all automatic and set on cruise control.  The super wealthy are out and about in their private jets and yachts, buzzing from mansion to mansion, and doing anything but contributing to the wealth they control. 

 

Proof of the intactness of this burgeoning outcome is found in the wealth Gini coefficient.  Currently at 0.90, it keeps getting higher and higher with each passing day.  New rents, new dividends, new interest payments, new stock options, and new capital gains are sucked up and flow unerringly away from you and me to those at the top.  It is how we as a society divvy up our wealth, aka known as our prosperity.  First, we give 90 percent of all present wealth (unearned) to those wealthy families at the top, and then we keep on giving 90 percent of all new wealth to them (also unearned).   Trump et al. call it free enterprise at work.   Those of us who study this stuff call it the rape of the masses. 

 

It started long before Trump was put into power by racists, bigots, right-wingers, evangelicals, and assorted other misfits and brainwashed automatons, plus with the hacking help of Russia.  It started 39 years ago when flunkies like Dick Cheney were shown the Laffer curve.  They ran like the wind with it.  They were told what they wanted to hear; namely, that we could lower the top bracket income rates and increase tax revenues.  They took that to mean we could cut them all the way down to zero and the Treasury would be overflowing with money.  It has had the opposite effect since about 1981.  Deficits  slowed a little during the Clinton and Obama administrations when tax rates were hiked; otherwise, it has been a disaster.  I don’t know of any sane economist who ever endorsed the Dick Cheney version of the Laffer curve, including Arthur Laffer. 

 

And for the Future.  Here are the new ways the right-wingers want to keep the wealth gap between the haves and the have-nots growing wider.  By passing this list of legislation in 2020 they intend to keep sucking dollars out of the pockets of the bottom 90 percent so that the ultra-wealthy can pile more and more onto their $102 trillion wealth pile and watch it grow into regal family dynasties that last forever. 

·Make deep cuts to Medicaid, threatening the health security of millions;

·Call for $135 billion in cuts to Medicare prescription drug coverage, with no guarantees these cuts would not harm beneficiaries;

·Cut Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), harming people who are unable to work due to disabilities;

·Cut education funding through privatization of K-12, encourage states to roll back health and safety protections for children in exchange for one-time child-care funding, and reduce student financial aid for college by $170 billion over ten years, harming children of all ages and young adults;

·Weaken worker safety protections including an 11% budget cut to the Department of Labor, putting big business ahead of working people;

·Cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), threatening the food security of hungry children.

Source:  Economic Policy Institute

 

Elections have Consequences.  These new cuts will widen the Trump deficits from $1.9 trillion to $3.1 trillion while assuring that you and I pay to keep the mountain of wealth growing for the ultra-wealthy.  A vote for Trump is like voting for the honor of building your own gallows, putting the hangman’s rope around your own neck, and releasing the trap door.  Wake up, America!  We need to vote to halt these cycles of perpetual pillage, plunder, rape, and suicide.