There's a new political campaign out there, calling itself "No Labels" (nolabels.org). David Brooks of the NY Times wrote about them on September 1, with the headline "If an Alternative Candidate Is Needed in 2024, These Folks Will Be Ready." The gist of it is that "If one of the parties nominates a candidate acceptable to the center of the electorate, then the presidential operation will shut down. But if both parties go to the extremes, then there will be a unity ticket appealing to both Democrats and Republicans to combat this period of polarized dysfunction." I expect that Brooks regarded Hillary Clinton as "acceptable to the center of the electorate," in contrast to Bernie Sanders who was not (despite the overwhelming support he enjoyed during his campaign). Be that as it may, NoLabels has been around for a decade, producing "bold ideas to rebuild our democracy." I have not done a deep dive into all their programs and proposals, but when I encountered the list of their “enduring beliefs that guide No Labels– beliefs that we hope will once again guide the political and policy choices of our leaders,“ I stopped to write them an email explaining why they would not be getting my support. Here it is:
While your mission looked interesting at first, your “Belief #4” was a dealbreaker. It reads,
"We believe there is no such thing as something for nothing, and because of this we believe in the importance of a balanced budget. The growing tendency of both parties to support more tax cuts or government spending with no regard for their impact on future generations will lead to a lower quality of life for our children and grandchildren and make it harder for America to tackle future challenges to our national, economic and environmental security."
This belief is incompatible with my recently-gained understanding of macroeconomics (usually referred to as MMT, for "Modern Monetary Theory") and is wrong in so many ways that I cannot support your movement. The American people have been deliberately divided into warring tribes, based on propaganda promoted and controlled by the people currently in power—I believe the appropriate label is "kleptocrats." Some hold office, but most work behind the scenes.They have succeeded in controlling the mindsets of most of us in ways that ensure their continuing power. Let me elaborate.
They have formed a club to maintain their control. It does not need a name or a "Board of Directors," although there are many formal groups that collaborate to the same end. They have a set of beliefs, too, and they recognize each other by their actions more than any set of formal memberships they share. Asa George Carlin liked to say, "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."
Here's what I believe that list of beliefs would look like if it was ever written down:
1) Ordinary people outside our club must not be allowed to know what we do. They have no right to be told, and they are not competent to manage national or world affairs, but club members are.
2) Public-facing remarks and stated positions of club members are intended to present ourselves as being concerned with, and intended to promote, the public welfare—while, of course, they are not. Private-facing information which could reveal our true, self-interested motives must be kept within the club and never publicly acknowledged.
3) We must always promote divisions between groups and set these groups against each other, to distract them from what we are doing and deflect them from attacking us.
4) To neutralize any political opposition to the workings of our club, we must maintain the forms and appearance of a democratic society, providing the illusion of choice through a "two-party system." At the same time, we control "both sides" by selecting the nominees of "both parties" and funding them both. If these measures fail to exclude our opponents, we shall resort to other measures, including blackmail and, as a last resort, "wet ops."
Although there are more than four, these are the essential core of the list.
Returning to the fatal faults in "belief #4" of NoLabels: this belief could be the official manifesto of "deficit hawks," who treat federal (Congressional) spending (appropriations) as equivalent to household, state, or local spending, where all expenditures must come from a finite source (microeconomics) and be subtracted from savings, taxes, and fees, or be borrowed. In each case, a budget must be balanced; spending over income will drive such an entity towards bankruptcy. Currently (and overtly, since Nixon took us off the gold standard), Congress functions within a fiat system. While every federal program must be funded, the required funds are "spent into existence" through appropriations by creating the funds simply by entering numbers on a spreadsheet. The Constitution gives to Congress the exclusive power to issue our currency. Everyone else, by law, is a user of currency.
Non-federal spending of all kinds must come from taxes, borrowing, or fees, where a budget imposes a finite limit on spending. By contrast, federal appropriations are limited only by the total productive capacity of our nation. Since the term "spending" refers to microeconomics and finite amounts in a budget, it does not apply to Congress, the sole issuer of US currency. Therefore, there is no such thing as "federal spending," as it is created through appropriations, not subtracted from a preexisting quantity.
Yes, "both parties" support tax cuts and/or increased (federal) "spending," believing or pretending) that "unbalanced" federal budgets will cause future generations to have a lower quality of life ("and make it harder for America to tackle future challenges to our national, economic and environmental security"). "Both parties" are wrong.
Military (warfare) "spending" is the only kind on which (kleptocrat) Club members put no limits, for which they never demand a balanced budget. They understand our fiat system, in which the sole issuer of currency (Congress, via the Treasury and the Fed) can never run out of funds, or go bankrupt. As Dick Cheney famously said, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." Yet, when bills before Congress require appropriations for other reasons, to tackle non-military "challenges to our national, economic and environmental security," they pretend that the federal budget is like a household budget and raise the alarm that we "don't have the money to pay for it," raising the false fear of "deficit spending," just as you did in your fourth Belief. They falsely claim that "paying for" these programs will require higher taxes or more debt, which must be extracted from them through higher taxes or ruinous borrowing.
The kleptocrats know, but want everyone else to be ignorant of, the fact that (under our fiat system) federal taxes DO NOT FUND FEDERAL "SPENDING" (appropriations). They're well aware that Congress creates the funds for federal programs by issuing (not "spending") money into existence. So, why do we need federal taxes at all?
Federal taxes serve to delete currency from the "money supply" (actually the credit supply) to control inflation. They are never put into a giant Scrooge-McDuck-like money pit or spent back into the economy. They are deleted from the credit side of the federal spreadsheet. If taxes were paid in cash, they would be shredded.
When any President takes "credit" for reducing our deficit, he is committing fraud. He (or the Fed Chairman) should accept the blame for shrinking the economy, and increasing unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and death rates. The only entities who profit from a federal surplus and its deadly effects are the corporations who gain from depressed wages and the depressed victims who are unable to find jobs with livable wages.
This is why I will not be joining your efforts, no matter what good you might do in pursuing your other beliefs. With profound sorrow, I'm providing my own label to your offer to join: "Rejected."
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