Fix Our Money

Fix Our Money (Legislative Agenda)

To fix our money, the following 2-year agenda is proposed for the first two-year election cycle from 2021 to 2022:

  1. Election Cycle 1 – 2021 to 2022 (Money):
    1. Work with Congress to transform our monetary system from a Debt/Credit-Based Monetary System to an Asset/Capital-Based Monetary System by terminating or revising the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 in accordance with the February 25,1927 amendment.  The General Accounting Office (GAO) would audit the Federal Reserve System and based on that audit negotiate with the national banks to gain control of the shares of the Federal Reserve Banks from the private banks and transfer the twelve Federal Reserve Banks to the Department of the Treasury.  Then establish congressional Monetary Policy Committees to assure that each sector of the national economy receives enough money to sustain quantified growth without fueling inflation.  See Appendix 3C for a list of the proposed fifteen (15) Industrial Sectors which are based on IRS Business Activity Codes.  Banks and other lending institutions would no longer create money “out of thin air” by using fractional-reserve banking, but they, along with the Federal Government, would receive their money to support the M2 Money Supply through loans from the federally controlled Federal Reserve Banks, which would be backed by the total non-operational assets of the Federal Government (the people).  See Appendix 8A for an Estimated U.S. Non-Operational Balance Sheet.  (Office of Management and Budget, Government Accountability Office)
    2. Work with Congress to establish a firewall between commercial banking, investment banking, securities services, and insurance services when these services are under the control or management of one organization.  Each of these financial services should be required to compete in the market place individually in their own sector to avoid anti-competitive practices by huge corporations.  When the funds of depositors and clients are going to be used by the service providers to cross these firewalls between financial services they must be approved by the depositors and clients.
    3. Work with Congress to establish Monetary Policy Committees for each of the industrial sectors proposed in Appendix 3C and organize Congressional Budget/Appropriations Committees (CBAC’s) that would work with each of the fifteen (15) Cabinet Departments to develop and implement a balanced budget before the end of 2022, continue to maintain a balanced budget, and begin providing quarterly financial reports to the American people before the end of 2022.  See Appendix 8B1 for the proposed Budgetary Organizational Chart and 8B2 for a History of Budget Performance by Department. (Office of Management and Budget, Government Accountability Office)
    4. Work with Congress to pass a version of the federal minimum wage bill proposed by the House of Representatives, which would gradually increase the current minimum wage from $7.25 per hour (which has been in effect since 2008) to $15.00 per hour.  This legislation would lift the vast majority of the 13.7 million households with incomes under $15,000 out of poverty and a large percentage of the 39.7 million households with incomes between $15,000 and $50,000 out of poverty, which would significantly increase federal and state income tax revenues and reduce the number of households needing government assistance.  See Appendix 12A for U.S. Household Income Statistics.  (Department of Labor)
    5. Work with state, local and national leaders and the agricultural community to develop agricultural reserves as a national asset to reduce the national impact of weather-related disasters, combat hunger nationally and abroad, and improve trade balances with other nations.  As agricultural production exceeds the needs of the national and the international market place, the excess production would be purchased from the U.S. market by the federal government, at a set percentage of market value, and stored as agricultural reserves to maintain competitive prices, and the agricultural reserves would become a national asset to be used for disaster relief, hunger relief, and export trade negotiations with other nations around the world. (Department of Agriculture)
    6. Work with Congress to initiate a design contract for a NASA-Styled program to develop vehicles for the exploration of the oceans to recover and recycle the sunken vessels from previous wars and civilian operations.  An analysis of the sunken vessels of the major powers from World War II alone reveals that the total estimated displacement tons of sunken vehicles is about 2,546,359 tons, which are distributed as follows:  Japan – 1,205,232 tons; United Kingdom – 480,400 tons; Germany – 366,464 tons; United States – 342,033 tons; and Italy – 152,230 tons.  The materials not shared with the foreign nations from these sunken vessels would be recycled and added to the assets of the national recycled reserves.  Once established, the raw materials from this program should be much less expensive than mining the materials from scratch and much less damaging to the environment. (Department of Defense)
    7. Work with Congress to provide tax incentives for American companies who use automation to produce high quality products and services in this country with long-term product support to compete with the cheap offshore products and services with short-term product support that are produced by many of the large multi-national corporations in foreign countries. This would revitalize the repair and product support industries in America and drastically reduce the volume of servicable products going to landfills by allowing these older products to be repaired and eventually resold by the owners to lower income families in this country or exported to underdeveloped nations around the world to improve their standard of living.   
    8. Work with Congress to initiate design and construction contracts to reopen and modernize old foundries and establish new foundries for the recovery and 100% recycling of all military debris and obsolete military equipment and aircraft left from national military operations and foreign military operations by melting them down into ingots and adding them to the National Recycled Reserves to provide raw materials for the rebuilding of the national infrastructure, new national projects, and resale to industry and foreign countries for revenue, which would reduce taxes and improve the export balance of payments.   For a look at excess military aircraft, go to the website, https://www.airplaneboneyards.com/post-wwii-military-airplane-boneyards.htm (76).  Also find more high volume uses for the slag that comes from the smelting process.  (Department of the Interior and Department of Defense)
    9. Work with Congress to modify the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to enable the private insurers to reduce their costs and premiums by spreading their premiums and costs over multiple states.  The ACA health care exchange should be set up similar to the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program with one exchange to cover all of the states and the District of Columbia.  The federal government would help the new private insurers in their cost negotiations with the existing network of service providers in each state and help them expand to additional service providers.  The existing network of service providers would gain a large increase in new patients, which should help bring their costs down and provide momentum for them to expand and grow their businesses and create new jobs in the medical industry.  Also, the private insurers would only have to deal with one health care exchange and one federal regulator instead of multiple state exchanges and multiple state regulators.  Because of the ACA, 91.3% of Americans were covered by health insurance in 2017.  See Appendix 14B for a history of health insurance by state.  (Department of Health and Human Services)

Detailed Discussion of Proposed Asset/Capital-Based Monetary System

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 gives private banks and other lenders in our modern American society monopolistic power by the Congress to control the supply of money to the national economy from the private sector, and they do not have to own the money that they lend.  They are given the power to create money “out of thin air” and lend it to businesses and the American people at exorbitant interest rates, and they can control the supply of private money to the national economy and the Stock Market with very little governmental oversight.  According to the website entitled “famguardian.org” at https://famguardian.org/Subjects/MoneyBanking/FederalReserve/FRconspire/audit.htm (51), the following areas of the Federal Reserve System are excluded from inspections and audits by the General Accounting Office (GAO):

  1. transactions for or with a foreign central bank, government of a foreign country, or nonprivate international financing organization;
  2. deliberations, decisions, or actions on monetary policy matters, including discount window operations, reserves of member banks, securities credit, interest on deposits, open market operations;
  3. transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee; or
  4. a part of a discussion or communication among or between members of the Board of Governors and officers and employees of the Federal Reserve System related to the above items.

Since the Federal Reserve System is a private corporation owned by the banks, these are the very areas that should be inspected and audited by the GAO for the protection of our democracy and the American people.

According to the website, http://www.pragcap.com/understanding-inside-money-and-outside-money/, the primary sources of private money in the American economy are generated from the deposits of earned income into the accounts of private banks.  But instead of the bank deposits of earned income being the source of loans to businesses and the public, most of the deposits for these bank loans are created “out of thin air” by a process called fractional-reserve banking, which is also called “inside” money.  The “inside” money that is created from earned income deposits “out of thin air” is supported by “outside” money which is created by the U.S. Treasury in conjunction with the Federal Reserve Banks by the sale of Treasury securities on the open market that add to the public debt.  Fractional reserve banking is a banking system in which only a fraction of a bank’s deposits are backed by actual cash on hand that is available for withdrawal, and banks are only required to keep a certain reserve amount of the cash received from depositors on hand and available for withdrawal, which is controlled by the Federal Reserve and for most banks is about 10%.  This means that approximately 90% of the money that banks are loaning to the public and other businesses is “created out of thin air.”

The formula used to calculate the total amount of private “inside” money that can be created from fractional-reserve banking for each earned income deposit in a private bank is:  Total Money Created = Initial Deposit X (1/Reserve Requirement).  For a deposit of $100,000 with a 10% reserve requirement: Total Money Created = $100,000 X (1/.10) = $1,000,000.  Since the additional $900,000 is created “out of thin air” and not backed by any labor or assets, it contributes directly to the inflation of the money supply.  The individual depositor who deposits $100,000 of earned income into the bank will usually be paid less than 1% interest by the bank, but the banks will collect from 4% on mortgage loans up to 30% for credit cards from the $900,000 of unsupported “free money.”  Banks can control the private money supply of the nation and the Stock Market by the number of loans they make to businesses and the public and by foreclosing on loans that do not meet their desired objectives or refusing to make loans that are needed for growth in the economy.

There are thirteen (13) major industrial sectors that are tracked by the Federal Election Commission and the www.opensecrets.org/ (45) website for political contributions, which are Agribusiness, Communications/Electronics, Construction, Defense, Energy/Natural Resources, Finance/Insurance/Real Estate, Health, Lawyers & Lobbyists, Transportation, Miscellaneous Business, Labor, Ideology/Single-Issue, and Other.  Twelve (12) of the thirteen industrial sectors must rely on the banks and other lending institutions in the Finance/Insurance/Real Estate Sector for the loans, insurance, and real estate needed to support their operations, and they must supply the labor, materials, and sales to repay those loans.  However, the major banks and other lenders in the Finance/Insurance/Real Estate Sector are given monopolistic power by the Federal Government to create the private money loaned to the other sectors “out of thin air” with no financial support from labor, materials, assets, or capital.

Our monetary system is designed to create debt, credit, and usury (interest) for the banks and other money lenders in the system, and the major players create their greatest profits and wealth when the other twelve industrial sectors and the smaller players within their own sector are having financial problems or when there is a crisis in the national economy or when there is a war.  This has created an economy that is based on unsupported debt from lending institutions (shifting sand), rather than concrete financial assets and capital (solid rocks). 

The result of this monopoly on money is the transfer of wealth from smaller businesses and the public to the major players in the economy, who have the power to manipulate the private money supply to suit their private objectives with limited governmental oversight.  The banks exercise control over the economy by creating debt through the Federal Reserve System, which they own, and then using the “free cash” from those debts to manipulate the New York Stock Exchange for continuous gain in good times and bad times.

Appendix 6 and the website at http://www.afn.org/~govern/pa10005.html (54) contains an article entitled, Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People, by Sheldon Emry, which provides further insight into the debt crisis in America.  Appendix 6.1A is an article by the American Monetary Institute entitled, A Brief History of Money in the USA, which describes how money power evolved in America during the founding of our nation.  This article is no longer available on their website.

Appendix 6.1B contains quotes about this money power from the founders of our nation, former presidents, former congressmen, former leaders of national and international banks, and former world leaders, dictators, and others.  From these quotes you can see that this legal monetary scam of the American people has been going on since the founding of our democracy, and there are indications that we are headed toward another financial crisis which will destroy our democracy and lead to world domination by a very few greedy people. 

President Abraham Lincoln had to deal with the physical slavery of 12.6% of the population which was threatening to split our democracy.  We must now deal with the financial slavery of over 90% of the population which is threatening to destroy democracy.  Following is a synopsis by a website source of how this money scam contributed to the 2008-2010 financial crisis.

According to the website http://www.thrivemovement.com/banking-history-timeline-follow-money (57),   in 1999 Congress passed the Financial Services Modernization Act, which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and allowed investment banks, commercial banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to merge.  From 2000 to 2003 the Federal Reserve extended easy credit, lowered the Fed Fund Rate from 6.5% to 1% and set up for another financial “boom.”  On April 28, 2004, five of the largest investment banks met with members of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and urged them to allow the banks to regulate themselves, so they could determine how much money they could create “out of thin air” to loan into circulation. 

The SEC allowed the banks to regulate themselves and create as much debt as they wanted, which unleashed billions of dollars for high-risk investment packages.  From 2004 to 2005 the Federal Reserve set off a new “bust” by making loans and adjustable rate mortgages more expensive and raising the Fed Fund Rate to 5.25%.  From 2007 to 2010 the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression occurred.  This crisis affected people all over the world and millions lost their homes, jobs, and retirement funds.  Many of the smaller banks were absorbed by bigger banks to further consolidate wealth and eliminate competition.  J.P. Morgan Chase bought Washington Mutual Bank, the largest bank to fail in the history of the United States, and Bear Sterns, the fifth largest investment bank.  In 2010 J.P. Morgan Chase made a record $17.4 Billion in profits.

This website also reveals that there is a pattern of American Presidents being assassinated after challenging the central bankers and their monopoly on money.  On January 30, 1835 President Andrew Jackson, the first president to challenge and defeat the money monopoly, escaped assassination when the assassin’s gun misfired twice.  President Lincoln, who overruled debt-based money and issued Greenbacks to fund the Civil War, was assassinated on April 15, 1865.  President James Garfield, a staunch proponent of “honest money” backed by gold and silver, was assassinated on July 2, 1881 after four months in office.  President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 11110 on June 4, 1963 that authorized the U.S. Treasury to issue silver certificates, which would threaten the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.  He was assassinated on November 22, 1963.  President Johnson reversed the order in December, 1963 and restored sole monetary power to the Federal Reserve banks.

The website, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_banking_in_the_United_States, reveals that in 1913, the Pujo Money Trust Investigation Committee of the Congress determined unanimously that a small conspiratorial group of financiers had consolidated their control of numerous industries by the abuse of the public trust in the United States.  The committee report revealed that officers of J.P. Morgan & Company sat on the boards of directors of 112 corporations with a market capitalization fo $22.5 billion when the New York Stock Exchange only had a total capitalization of about $25.5 billion.  The committee report also revealed that a handful of men had manipulative control of the New York Stock Exchange and had attempted to evade interstate trade laws.  The findings of this report resulted in the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914.

Following is an analysis of the impacts that the five major U.S. investment banks and other companies from the Financial/Real Estate Contributions Sector currently have on the New York Stock Exchange.  Appendix 6.2A shows that about 15 Institutional/Fund investors own about 25% of the shares in the Dow Jones list of 30 companies.  Appendix 6.2B shows that the top 10 holdings of the five major banks and other banking institutions in the above 15 Institutional/Fund investors is about $913.3 Million or an average of about 7.6% of stocks outstanding of each investor.  Appendix 6.2C shows that the direct holdings of the five major banks in the Dow Jones list of 30 companies is about $313.2 Billion or an average of about 4% of the stock outstanding of each company.  Appendix 6.2D shows that the holding of the five major banks in a sampling of the world’s largest U.S. non-Dow Jones public companies in the New York Stock Exchange is about $151.8 Billion or an average of about 3.3% of the stock outstanding of each company. 

Due to the enormous amount of interest charged by the five major banks and other lending institutions from money created “out of thin air,” they are able to invest in and have some influence over every major company in the New York Stock Exchange and many international markets.  The major banks use their ownership and monetary control of the Federal Reserve System to creat fluctuations in the U.S. Stock Market that generate enormous profits for them in good times and bad times.  These profits come at the expense of the physical and financial health of the American people and the true growth of the American economy.

Appendix 6A is a synopsis of the Total Public Debt from 1940 to 2018, which shows that the public debt increased from 51.6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1940 to 106.1% of GDP in 2018. (Note: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total value of everything produced in the country in one year) Appendix 6B is a summary of Federal Budget Performance from 1789 to 2018.  In the 30-year period from 1900, 13 years before the Federal Reserve Act, to the year 1930, 17 years after the Act, the federal government had good budget performance with only 11 relatively small budget deficits, except for the 3 that occurred during World War I. 

When the Act was passed, it was granted a 20-year charter, which was to be renewed in 1933.  However, on February 25, 1927, 14 years later, this clause was amended to allow the Act to continue until dissolved by Congress.  Two years later in 1929 the Great Depression occurred and federal budget deficits have been escalating continuously since that time, and there have been only 13 budget surpluses in the 89 years between 1929 and 2018. 

Appendix 6C provides a history of America’s economic performance indicators from 1974 to 2018.  In the 44 years since 1974, there have been only 4 budget surpluses, and the Total Public Debt has increased from 32.6% of GDP in 1974 to 106.1% of GDP in 2018, and the public debt is growing faster than GDP.  This means that the public debt will continue to grow, and unless we balance the federal budget and begin paying down this debt, it will always be there to impede the growth of the American economy, cause financial crises, and pass this insurmountable debt to our children and our children’s children. 

There is an even greater crisis with private debt, because private debt is almost double the size of public debt and it has a greater impact than public debt on the national economy and the lives of the American people.  Appendix 7 is a summary of private sector debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 33 major countries from 1999 to 2018.  This summary shows that the private sector debt as a percentage of GDP for the U.S. grew from 174.1% in 1999 to 196.7% in 2018.  During that same period the U.S. public sector debt as a percentage of GDP grew from 59.1% to 106.1% in 2018. 

An article entitled, The Private Debt Crisis, by Richard Vague at the website, https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/42/the-private-debt-crisis/ (56), provides and analysis and some insight into the private debt crisis in America and other countries.  Mr. Vague acknowledges that private debt is beneficial and essential to any economy, but when it increases too rapidly or becomes too high, it becomes a drag on economic growth and often leads to a financial crisis.  It diverts the income of consumers and businesses away from investing in goods and services and growth, toward the payment of interest and principle on the debt.

The federal government must establish a solid foundation for our monetary system which is based on established governmental assets which belong to the people.  Appendix 8A is an estimate of the 2018 non-operational balance sheet of the Federal Government which reveals that the Federal Government owned about $21.5 trillion dollars in non-operational assets of which about $3.7 trillion were relatively liquid assets in 2018.  The M2 money supply needed to support the national economy was about $14.2 trillion dollars in 2018.  Some of the money needed to support the M2 Money Supply would be issued by the Department of the Treasury and would be backed by the assets of the Federal Government and the rest would come from money backed by labor, materials, assets, and capital. 

The banks and other lending institutions, large businesses, and the Federal Government (until the federal budget is balanced) would borrow money from the Treasury to fund their operations at interest rates based on established criteria, which should be no less than 2% for mortgages and loans to stimulate the economy, and no less than 6% for credit card loans.  The interest received by the Treasury from the Federal Reserve Banks, the Federal Government, and other lending institutions would be used to pay off the national debt, fund new governmental infrastructure projects that benefit the people, and reduce taxes to businesses and the people. It is recommended that national interest rate ceilings be established by Congress for all sources of credit and loans in the economy.

To regain control of the nation’s money supply, the Federal Government must gain control of all the shares of the Federal Reserve Banks from the private banks by dissolving or revising the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and transfering the twelve Federal Reserve Banks to the Department of the Treasury, and then develop a process for the conversion of existing deposits and loans to the new Asset/Capital-Based Monetary System without creating chaos and distress in the American economy.  To assure that all fifteen of the proposed industrial sectors obtain the money to support their operations, the Congress would set up congressional Monetary Policy Committees to represent each of the fifteen industrial sectors to assure that each sector receives enough money to satisfy their demand for growth, but not enough to fuel inflation.  At least one of the twelve Federal Reserve banks would be assigned to each of the industrial sectors.  The economic performance indicators that are now used to monitor the performance of the nation (Appendix 6C) would also be used to monitor the performance of each industrial sector and each Monetary Policy Committee.

The Monetary Policy Committee for each industrial sector should include members of Congress and the Department of the Treasury who would have joint oversight of the Federal Reserve System, a Federal Reserve Bank that specializes in the sector, representatives from the private banking industry who would be making loans to the sector, and one or more representatives from a cross section of the sector.  Each committee would hear testimonies as necessary from those within the sector to assure that everyone is treated fairly. 

The objectives of each of the monetary policy committees would be to assure that there is competition within each industrial sector, assure that there is funding to support the quantified demand of each sector without fueling inflation, assure that businesses and the public are protected from exploitation and monopolistic practices, assure that decisions by the committee are based on fairness to all concerned rather than special privileges and bribery, and establish policies that promote peace, prosperity, and a better standard of living for the American people, as well as, the global community. 

If the banking industry should attempt to disrupt the economy, as in the past, by refusing to make loans or foreclosing on existing loans, the governmentally controlled Federal Reserve banks would be the “lender of last resort.”  This would assure that businesses and the public are able to obtain the money needed to support their operations and their families, provided they can meet established criteria which should be unbiased and available to everyone, including low income families.

Appendix 8B1 is a proposed organization chart for the establishment of a balanced and unified budget and national financial reports.  In this case, a unified budget means that the House, Senate, and the President would work together in planning and implementing the annual federal budget with each performing their constitutional duties during the budget year.  Each Congressional Budget-Appropriations Committee would be assigned to one of the 15 cabinet departments and one of the 15 proposed Industrial Sectors to work with the Executive Branch in planning and implementing the federal budget and regulating monetary policy within each sector. 

It is based on the following assumptions: 

  1. the conversion from a Debt/Credit-Based Monetary System to an Asset/Capital-Based Monetary System;
  2. the transfer of the Federal Reserve System to the Department of the Treasury; 
  3. the establishment of Monetary Policy Committees for each Industrial Sector to control inflation and assure that each industrial sector is adequately funded; and
  4. the establishment of Congressional Budget/Appropriations Committees from the House and Senate for each of the 15 Cabinet Departments to help plan and manage the budgetary process. 

To control government spending, achieve a balanced federal budget, and gain the confidence of the people: 

  1. limit the amount of money that can be issued against federal assets;
  2. ensure that any money entering the U.S. monetary system is backed by labor, materials, tangible assets, or capital;
  3. provide quarterly financial reports of federal operations to the American people that are consistent with established business reporting; and
  4. survey state governments for their top priority needs from each of the Cabinet Departments and allocate federal services to all the states in a way that maintains a fair-minded and balanced budget.

Appendix 8B2 is a history of the federal budget by department and agency from 2008 to 2018.  It is designed to show how the restructured summary budget would look when compared to the Budget/Financial Organization Chart (Appendix 8B1), and how the interest payments to the Federal Reserve Banks would be applied to the budget.  For the purpose of this analysis, it is estimated that the average interest rate from the Federal Reserve Banks for the combination of mortgage interest, economic stimulus interest, and credit card interest would be about 4%.  It is assumed that the minimum Federal Reserve interest rate for mortgage and economic stimulus loans would be 2%, and the minimum interest rate for credit card loans would be 6%.

 

Detailed Discussion of Income / Unemployment / Poverty Issues

Appendix 12A is a history of U.S. household income by race and Hispanic origin from 2007 to 2017 from Table A-1 on the Census Bureau website at    https://www.census.gov/content/census/en/data/tables/2018/demo/income-poverty/p60-263.html (84). The total 2017 income for all races shows that 10.7% or 13.65 million households had incomes of less than $15,000, 31.1% or 39.68 million households had incomes between $15,000 and $49,999, 50.5% or 64.43 million households had incomes between $50,000 and $199,999, and 7.7% or 9.82 million households had incomes over $200,000. 

The total 2017 income for the White race alone shows that 9.1% or 9.11 million households had incomes of less than $15,000, 30.3% or 30.32 million households had incomes between $15,000 and $49,999, 52.5% or 52.53 million households had incomes between $50,000 and $199,999, and 8.2% or 8.20 million households had incomes over $200,000. 

The total 2017 income for the Black race alone shows that 19.9% or 3.82 million households had incomes of less than $15,000, 38.4% or 6.53 million households had incomes between $15,000 and $49,999, 38.5% or 6.54 million households had incomes between $50,000 and $199,999, and 3.1% or 527,000 households had incomes over $200,000. 

The total 2017 income for the Asian race alone shows that 9.0% or 606,000 households had incomes of less than $15,000, 22.0% or 1.48 million households had incomes between $15,000 and $49,999, 54.5% or 3.67 million households had incomes between $50,000 and $199,999, and 14.6% or 983,000 households had incomes over $200,000. 

The total 2017 income for Hispanics of any race shows that 12.0% or 2.08 million households had incomes of less than $15,000, 37.4% or 6.48 million households had incomes between $15,000 and $49,999, 46.7% or 8.09 million households had incomes between $50,000 and $199,999, and 3.8% or 658,000 households had incomes over $200,000.

Appendix 12B1 is a history of U.S. unemployment statistics from 2008 to 2018 by state, which were not seasonally adjusted, obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics website at https://www.bls.gov/lau/rdscnp16.htm (85).  This data shows that in 2008 at the end of the Bush Administration, when the economic crisis of 2008 began, the total U.S. unemployment rate was 6.0%.  In 2009, at the height of the economic crisis, the unemployment rate jumped to 9.6%.  During the Obama Administration from 2009 to 2016, the economic crisis was mitigated, and the U.S. unemployment rate was almost cut in half from 9.6% down to 4.8%.  During the Trump Administration, the unemployment rate has been further reduced from 4.8% to 3.6%.

Appendix 12B2 is a summary of U.S. unemployment statistics by sex, race and education for 2018, which were developed from Bureau of Labor Statistics Annual Employment Status Tables at the website, https://www.bls.gov/cps/tables.htm#charunem (86).  According to these reports, the 2018 unemployment rate for the U.S. was 4.0% or 7.30 million people, with a breakdown by race of 3.5% or 4.35 million people for the White race, 6.5% or 1.32 million people for the Black race, 3.0% or 304,000 people for the Asian race, and 4.7% or 1.32 million people for the Hispanic race. 

The unemployment rate for men was 3.9% or 3.91 million people, with a breakdown by race of 3.5% or 2.38 million people for the White race, 7.0% or 676,000 people for the Black race, 3.0% or 159,000 people for the Asian race, and 4.3% or 695,000 people for the Hispanic race.

The unemployment rate for women was 4.0% or 3.39 million people, with a breakdown by race of 3.4% or 1.97 million people for the White race, 6.0% or 646,000 people for the Black race, 3.0% or 146,000 people for the Asian race, and 5.1% or 628,000 people for the Hispanic race. 

Appendix 12C1 is a history of the percentage of people in poverty in the U.S. by state using prior 3-year averages from 2008 to 2018, with the year 2015 missing from the data.  These statistics from several Census Bureau websites show that poverty in America has not improved since 2008.  In 2008 the poverty percentage was 12.5%.  During the period of the economic crisis from 2009 to 2014 the poverty percentage went as high as 16.0%.  In 2018 the poverty percentage was 12.8%, still higher than the 12.5% in 2008. 

The Federal hourly minimum wage was last changed in 2008, when it went from $6.55 to $7.25.  The annual minimum wage income of $15,080 created by this 2008 change is currently below the federal poverty thresholds for all two-member households with one breadwinner, which is shown in Appendix 12C2.  It is recommended that the current proposal by the House of Representatives to gradually increase the minimum wage from $7.25/hour to $15.00/hour be implemented.

The issues relating to income, unemployment, and poverty are covered under this UP-5 concerning the sacredness of all human life and treating other people the way we want to be treated.  Scriptures that provide the moral foundations for issues relating to income and unemployment include the following:  “Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates:  At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee” (Deut. 24:14-15).  “Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning” (Lev. 19:13).  “Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger” (Prov. 19:15).  “The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour” (Prov. 21:25).  Scriptures relating to poverty include: “And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee” (Lev. 25:35).  “He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want” (Prov. 22:16).  Human government can use the spiritual controls embodied in the redemptive process of conviction, confession, repentance, and forgiveness to help to identify persons or groups who are depriving others of fair employment opportunities and a decent standard of living as a result of fraud, violence, coercion, abuse, or exploitation.

Proposals will now be discussed concerning ways to provide full employment to all Americans who are willing and able to work and how to provide additional sources of revenue to balance the federal budget.  If we fix our national public and private debt by implementing the Asset/Capital-Based Monetary System, the banks would no longer be able to inflate the economy with unsupported bank debt, and an estimated $92.6 billion in revenue from interest charged to the banks would be added to the federal budget to help pay off the public debt.  As mentioned above, if the federal minimum wage is gradually increased from $7.25 per hour to $15.00 per hour, all households would exceed the federal poverty threshold and federal, state, and local governments would receive additional tax revenues and Medicaid costs should be reduced.  These additional tax revenues, along with the funds made available by the Asset/Capital-Based Monetary System, would enable federal, state, and local governments to begin investing in our national infrastructure, which is currently experiencing a $2.1 trillion shortfall, and create many new jobs.

The proposed Asset/Capital-Based Monetary System would also make it possible for the federal government to begin investing in a 100% recycling program for our nation, which would begin repairing the damage to our environment caused by over a century of neglect.  These new recycling industries would create new jobs, new technologies, new industries, and new sources of revenue for federal, state, and local governments.  The initial investments by the federal government would be grants with goals and timetables to colleges and universities, the scientific community, and industry to develop and design automated processes and equipment for the construction of prototype plants for each recycling initiative.  These grants to colleges and universities would provide additional revenue to help bring down the costs of a college education in America.

The federal government would begin working with colleges and universities, industry leaders, labor leaders, and local communities to begin training citizens for the new technologies, new industries, new business opportunities, and new jobs that would be generated by these new governmental initiatives.  These training initiatives would be extended to prison inmates, people involved in drug rehabilitation programs, and people involved in other retraining programs.  The goal would be to provide viable opportunities for people to repair their lives and become productive, law-abiding citizens and to provide full employment for every American who is willing and able to work. 

Another goal would be for government leaders, industry leaders, and labor leaders to work together to improve the working relationship between management and labor, such that employees not only receive good wages and benefits in their jobs, but they are also allowed to share in the profits of their companies.  This would reduce the incentives for employees to initiate strikes and for companies to move their operations off-shore to avoid paying their employees decent wages. 

The spiritual controls embodied in the redemptive process of conviction, confession, repentance, and forgiveness can be utilized by anyone, or any organization, who has impinged on the free will and civil rights of another person or group as a result of fraud, violence, coercion, abuse, or exploitation to correct that behavior or that conduct.  They can be used by industry leaders to correct the fraudulent policies of their companies.  And, as mentioned earlier, they can be utilized by law enforcement officials, attorneys, prosecutors, and judges to correct unlawful conduct and help offenders repair their lives and become more productive, law-abiding citizens. 

After a person has been convicted of unlawful conduct, if that person shows by their “actual conduct” that they confess of their unlawful conduct, agrees to compensate the victims of their unlawful conduct, repents and asks the victims for forgiveness for their unlawful conduct, and forgives the others who may have been involved in that unlawful conduct with them, then this is evidence that the person has begun to make a permanent change in their behavior, and the criminal justice system should provide a process for that person to regain their full citizenship rights and obtain meaningful employment to support their families.

      

Detailed Discussion of Proposed Modifications to the Affordable Care Act (ACA)

Appendix 14B is a U.S. history of the people not covered by health insurance by state from 2009 to 2017.  When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010 there were about 49.95 million or 16.3% of the American people who were not covered by health insurance.  By the year 2017, that number had been reduced to 28.02 million people or 8.7%.  From 2010 to 2017 a total of 22.52 million people was able to obtain health insurance to cover all of the ten essential benefits of the ACA, which represented a 44.6% reduction in the number of Americans who are uninsured.  And the projected reduction in the growth of health care costs also appears to be taking place, because the Social Security disability (DI) trust fund and the two Medicare HI and SMI trust funds are now consistently showing positive net contribution levels. 

But in spite of these positive results, there has been a concerted effort by many in Congress to dismantle the ACA and reduce the ten essential benefits the ACA guarantees for all Americans, which are:  preventive care and chronic disease management, maternity and newborn care, mental and behavioral health treatment, services and devices for injuries and disabilities, lab tests, pediatric care with dental and vision, prescription drugs, outpatient care, emergency room services, and hospitalization.  It would appear that the better and more logical approach would be to find ways to improve the shortcomings of the ACA and obtain health insurance coverage for the remaining 8.7% of Americans who are still uninsured.  

Two of the primary problems with the ACA are the high cost of premiums at the state exchanges and the limited number of insurers and plan choices for enrollees in some state exchanges.  To reduce the cost of premiums, private insurers should be able to spread their insurance costs over a multiple number of states.  Appendix 14C is a summary of the First Quarter 2019 U.S. Cost-of-Living Indexes of all the states and the District of Columbia sorted and ranked by the Health Index.  The state rankings are divided into low-cost, medium-cost, and high-cost regions based on the Health Index.  For private insurers to be able to spread their premiums and costs over many states, they could be given the option of either spreading their health plan premiums and costs over all the states, or developing health plans for each of the health index regions. 

Following are proposals to improve the ACA:

  1. Many of our leaders in Washington are working fervently to strip most of the essential benefits from the ACA, because they interfere with the ability of the huge health insurance monopolies to control who they will insure, where they will insure, how they will insure, whether they will insure, and how much they will charge to insure.  There is nothing wrong with the Affordable Care Act that competition in the health care insurance market place will not cure.  In a Harvard Business Review article entitled, Health Care Needs Real Competition, by Leemore S. Dafny and Thomas H. Lee, MD, at the website https://hbr.org/2016/12/health-care-needs-real-competition (107), it is concluded that five things must happen to create positive change in the competitive health care market place. 
    1. Put the welfare of the patient first so that competition can be based on the value of service. 
    2. Create choices at every level of decision making:  consumers when choosing insurance plans, patients when choosing clinicians, and clinicians when choosing health care facilities.
    3. Stop rewarding the volume of individual services, and start rewarding value-based bundling of services. 
    4. Standardize methods to pay for value by segmenting patients with similar needs and agreeing on how the quality of care will be measured. 
    5. Make the outcomes of value-based data available to the health care industry and the public. 
  1. The best example of an existing competitive plan that would reduce costs and improve health care for all of the American people is the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program that the U.S. Congress developed to cover its members and all the other federal government employees.  This plan provides comprehensive coverage for the individual, the individual’s spouse, and any children under the age of 27.  It covers all of the ten essentials of the ACA and more, and there are 15 or more health care plan options for an employee to choose from, no matter where they live in the country.  This means that the federal government has already set up service provider networks in all the states and a significant number of private insurers are already plugged into these nationwide networks.  Consequently, these private insurers are able to offer comprehensive health care plans that spread their premiums and costs over all the states, which creates a very competitive environment among the insurers.  Instead of managing the program through multiple state exchanges and state regulators, the program is managed and regulated through one national exchange.  Since all of the plans offered by the insurers must include the ten essential benefits of the ACA, the major differences between the various plans are the number of people being covered, the number of additional benefits desired, and the amount of deductible risk the citizen is willing to accept.
  2. To enable the private insurers to spread their premiums and costs over multiple states, the ACA health care exchange should be set up similar to the FEHB Program with one exchange to cover all of the states and the District of Columbia.  The federal government would help the new private insurers in their cost negotiations with the existing network of service providers in each state and help them expand to additional service providers.  The existing network of service providers would gain a large increase in new patients, which should help bring their costs down and provide momentum for them to expand and grow their businesses and create new jobs in the health industry.  The private insurers would only have to deal with one health care exchange and one regulator instead of multiple state exchanges and multiple state regulators.  They would also be able to offer more competitive health plans, because they would be able to spread their premiums and costs over all the states or the three health index regions.  When the health care system has stabilized, consideration should be given to adding the military services, policemen, firemen, and other first responders to the health care system, with the federal, state, and local governments paying the insurance for certain risk factors to specified levels of coverage during normal deployments or when members are on active duty.
  3. Another factor affecting the cost of health care and the ACA is the exorbitant premiums that doctors and other medical professionals must pay for medical liability insurance, which has caused many doctors to close down their practices and caused many students not to enter the medical professions.  This is also true of product liability insurance.  To make liability insurance affordable for all professions, including the medical profession, there needs to be limits on the liability they must face and a process that assures fair and timely court decisions for the defendants and the plaintiffs.  To accomplish this, it is recommended that the value of a human life, as it relates to insurance and criminal activity, be set at $200,000, with various percentages of this value for bodily injuries.  Then multiples of this $200,000 value would be set for the various levels of negligence, ranging from 0 to 10, with the maximum award being $2.0 million plus court costs and attorney’s fees, which would also have limits.  Prosperous people would purchase additional insurance to cover their potential losses above the $200,000 value of life.  For the protection of vital professions and vital industries, lower limits might be set for maximum awards.  Gross negligence would cause the professionals or company leaders to lose their jobs and possibly go to prison, and the proposed Public Personal Information System (PPIS) would assure that the professionals could not practice again until they were recertified.  For example, some states have set a limit of $250,000 for medical malpractice awards. 

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