This is the concluding post in a four part series on the “Top” reasons why the national debt should matter. In Part One, I considered “Fix the Debt’s” claim that high levels of debt cause high unemployment and argued that this is a false claim. In Part Two, I followed with a review of the historical record from 1930 to the present and showed that it refutes this claim throughout this period, and that there is not even one Administration where the evidence doesn’t contradict “Fix the Debt’s” theory. In Part Three I showed that the other four reasons advanced by “Fix the Debt” also had very little going for them. In this part, I’ll give reasons why the national debt does matter, and why we should fix it without breaking America, or causing people to suffer.
Three Top Reasons
There are at least three “top” reasons for fixing the debt, even though the debt hysterians are wrong when they claim it’s a financial problem that will cause high unemployment.
— First, The interest on the debt predominantly goes to wealthy individuals, large corporations, and foreign nations, who buy US debt instruments, because they are a risk-free investment, a parking place for their funds where they can earn interest. I’m not sure what good this safe-harbor does for the rest of us. What do the 99% get out of its existence? Doesn’t this “welfare for the rich” just exacerbate our already very serious inequality problem.
— Second, the existence of a large national debt is a political problem, best illustrated by the activities of the “Fix the Debt” campaign and the other Peterson-funded groups forming his political network. The political problem is that the constant harping on the size of the debt and the non-existent solvency problem requiring deficit reduction impacts every spending bill introduced into Congress. No matter how beneficial a bill promises to be, it has to pass the meaningless test of a 10 year CBO deficit/debt projection assuring its deficit neutrality.
This requirement is contributing greatly to the crippling of a progressive economic agenda. Progressive advocates for policy changes believe that they must make obeisance to the deficit problem, and explain how it will be “funded” whenever they put out a proposal for a new policy. Two examples include Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Congressman John Conyers (D-MI). Sanders seemingly never fails in any speech advancing a proposal that will involve spending, to include a statement about his agreement with the importance of handling our long – term debt problem, and he usually also includes statements about how he plans to fund his initiative through new taxes on the people who can afford them.
He seems oblivious to the notion that higher taxes of any kind will cause the economy to contract and will have to be compensated for by spending that has a fiscal multiplier higher than the negative multiplier of the tax. Also, he reinforces the forces of austerity every time he makes his argument in favor of deficit reduction.
Congressman Conyers is known for long-term advocacy of his Medicare for All bill, HR 676. That bill outlines a simple and very good design for enhancing Medicare and extending it to all Americans. But it also includes a plan for further taxation to generate revenue to “pay for it,” and to show that it is “fiscally neutral.” Never mind that the economy would be much better off if the Bill envisioned a good bit of additional deficit spending, funded by Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS).
The Progressive Caucus in Congress provides another example. Their recent deficit reduction plan was expansive for the first two years in its decade projection, but the remaining years of their projection envisioned smaller deficits than most of the plans proposed at the time. Had the plan been implemented, it would have stimulated more expansion than its competitors, but after that it would have quickly brought stagnation, and perhaps recession as well.
Fiscal policy bills ought to be evaluated based on their anticipated overall benefits, both economic and more broadly social. But for many years now, consideration of bills strengthening the economy, the safety net, and solving our other major problems can’t get beyond the deficit spending issue, unless they’re about defense, or bailing out big banks and insurance companies. Our Congress has become a legislature of mean skinflints; and our Executive a branch full of green eye shades.
So, the most important reason to pay off the national debt is that its presence is a political barrier to solving the problems facing the United States, because it is a big stick with which to beat up people who actually want to solve these problems. If we use Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS) to pay off the debt, then we can turn to our real problems, and have a much better chance of solving them.
— The third top reason for paying off the debt is one of rapid education of the public. Americans need to understand that our fiat currency system gives us the policy space to solve our problems because, unlike households and every other type of currency user, the Federal Government doesn’t have to worry about not being able to afford to deficit spend up to the point of full employment.
They also need to understand that if a piece of legislation will benefit most of us, then we can always afford it, whatever the level of debt or the debt-to-GDP ratio involved, as long as we have REAL resources to implement the legislation. But the easiest way for them to come to understand these things is to provide a demonstration that the Federal Government really does have the currency-issuing power it needs, to do whatever we need and want it to do. A demonstration of this will shorten the education process about the nature of modern money by many years. That education can’t come too soon for this country.
Time to Transcend
If we want a healthy and growing economy, beginning this year and in every year from now to 2023 and beyond, then we ought to use Government deficit spending, preferably without issuing debt, to provide both full employment and price stability and to address the other extraordinary challenges of national adaptation we face. We have no Government Budgetary Constraint (GBC) to prevent us from doing that, regardless of the continuous propaganda spread by the Peterson front groups likening the US Government to an overgrown household of currency users rather than a modern government that issues its own fiat currency.
It’s time to transcend the “Fix the Debt” and deficit reduction nonsense we’ve been seeing for years from the Peterson-funded network of organizations. It’s time to get on with the job of using the powers of Government to bring back a nation that cares about economic and social justice, inequality, economic growth, energy, environmental and climate sustainability, and the wonderful future we can have if we’re only willing to forget about false solvency issues and start building it.
Pingback: The Five Worst Reasons Why the National Debt Sh...