Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees, along with his current allies in Congress, and among lobbyists, suggest that he is likely to break his frequently stated campaign promises that, if elected, he would not cut safety net programs. If he does, however, then he will probably do it by relying on the “we can’t afford it” justifications for austerity peddled by our Senators and Congressmen, especially the Republican and Democratic leaderships, corporate CEOs, tea partiers, most economists, and Peter G. Peterson’s minions.

This Washington austerity lobby led by the Pete Peterson network, soon to be in full-throated support of a renewed attack on the safety net, tells us that we’re running out of money; and that we can’t keep running huge deficits, and increasing our national debt forever, because eventually, our creditors will just cease lending us our dollars back. Its members, whether Republican or Democratic, also tell us that the Government can only raise money by either taxing or borrowing, and that when it comes to taxing, we can’t tax “the job creators” any more than we are already doing, or they’ll “go on strike” and won’t create any jobs, because we’ll have killed their incentive.

So, here we are, we have to reduce our borrowing, and we can have hardly any tax increases on “the job creators,” so what’s a fiscally responsible nation to do?

Well, they say, clearly “we” have to lower taxes on “the job creators” even more, and also, cut spending substantially on programs that provide benefits for the poor, the middle class, and even the 99%, so we can “. . . live within our means,” and remove the burden of excessive public debt on our grandchildren.

But, we know that all of this is faux fiscal responsibility. That is, we know that:

• “The job creators” aren’t making enough jobs to accommodate not only the officially unemployed, but also the many millions who are viewed as having dropped out the labor force? They give all kinds of excuses, but the truth is that they have no increased sales, so they have no incentive to create any more jobs;
• Congress, if it wishes, has the constitutional authority to reorganize the Federal Reserve so that the regional Fed Banks are nationalized and both they and the Board of Governors are placed under the authority of the Secretary of the Treasury. Then the Secretary would be empowered to create reserves out of thin air to fill the Treasury’s spending account, and keep it filled with sufficient funds to repay the national debt and enable mandated deficit without borrowing;
• Congress can do this, and get the national debt, that it and our leaders are so worried about, paid off, and keep us “debt free” thereafter;
• We then would not have to have any spending cuts or tax increases at all;
• To pay off the national debt and cover the deficits for years to come; it isn’t even necessary for Congress to reorganize the Fed, because the Treasury can use the Fed to create money in Treasury’s account from seigniorage? All that’s necessary is for the President to mint a High Value Platinum Coin (HVPC) with a face value of $100 Trillion dollars, deposit it at the Fed, and then begin to pay off the national debt and implement deficit spending using the electronic credits created in the process of seigniorage;
• It is a myth that the Federal Government can only get money enabling mandated spending through taxing or borrowing because Congress can modify the laws, as just described, so Treasury can generate US money out of thin air, just as the Fed does today;
• The Treasury can then use the reserves it creates, or causes the Fed to create, to pay down the debt and enable Congress’s mandated deficit spending appropriations for a long time to come;
• People will say that this is “printing money” and will cause inflation;
• It will not cause inflation; because reserves issued unaccompanied by debt are no more inflationary than reserves issued along with debt;
• If Congress legislates the authority for Treasury to do this, then we won’t have to worry about the deficit and debt, or our grandchildren having a heavy tax burden anymore; and we won’t have to worry about cutting safety net and other necessary programs anymore either;
• It is a myth that the Executive Branch of the Federal Government can only get money for spending through engaging in taxing, or selling interest-bearing debt instruments, because the President can use Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS) to harness the power of the Fed to generate reserves that end up in the Treasury General Account (TGA), and Treasury can then use the reserves to pay down the debt and enable mandated deficit spending;
• All the austerian reasons for wanting to reduce the deficit and impose austerity on the 99% are therefore bogus;
• The debt commissions, the debt ceiling crises, the fiscal cliff, the sequestration, the continuing resolution, budgetary crises, and the constant propaganda campaign directed at all of us by the Peterson network and its members, including most of Congress, is a grand “shock doctrine” process attempting to swindle us out of a government that works for 99% of us rather than the 1%;
• “The Grand Bargain” is “the Great Betrayal”! And we won’t have it!

So, now here’s a message for our Senators and Congressmen. Since, we know all of the above, we also know that all Republicans and most Democrats in Congress have been lying to us for many, many years about the virtues of budgeting to try to reduce deficits, achieve a balanced budget, or reduce entitlement spending. Such activities are neither virtuous nor fiscally responsible.

Instead, they are irresponsible and evil because they have caused many Americans to suffer unnecessarily over the years and because they have prevented Congress from budgeting to fulfill public purpose. In recent years alone, the austerian fiscal responsibility lies about deficit were used to limit the size of the fiscal stimulus and to prolong the recession by justifying deficit reduction efforts immediately thereafter.

They were part of the reason why enhanced Medicare for All (MFA) was taken “off the table” early in 2009, and the supposedly deficit neutral Affordable Care Act (ACA) was legislated. The unnecessary cost of the ACA was hundreds of thousands of fatalities occurring due to the failure to pass enhanced Medicare for All in early 2009.

Without the rationale of deficit neutrality due to the Government Budget Constraint (GBC), the ACA would never have passed, and enhanced MFA would never have been taken off the table. In addition, the discussion would have turned to the reduction in total spending for medical care that MFA would have produced, and also to the fatalities, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and divorces that would have been avoided.

Had MFA and a much larger stimulus bill passed, then the Republicans would not have swept in with the election of 2010. They would not have gradually gained control of both Congress and the Executive. Nor would there have been constant attacks on the safety net over the past 6 years and more.

Public purpose includes both full employment and price stability, achieving Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Economic Bill of Rights, reconstructing energy foundations based on renewable sources, ending the world climate crisis, and much more. Achieving public purpose will require deficit spending. It cannot be done as long as we have the lies about our deficits and the national debt shadowing every progressive economic policy we propose and blocking that spending using those lies.

So, to every “progressive” office holder and candidate, let the call go out: real progressives will no longer tolerate any more lies from you about how:

• Deficit reduction or balanced budgets are the mark of fiscal responsibility or any other desirable attribute;
• Wonderful the Clinton surpluses were for the nation or the Democratic Party;
• fiscally irresponsible the Republicans are because they run deficits;
• We must have a deficit neutral budget;
• Having a deficit neutral budget is in any way progressive;
• This or that program must be deficit neutral over 10 years;
• CBO projects this or that deficit or surplus in the process of your supporting or opposing a particular program;
• It is important and a virtue for a Government program to reduce the deficit, or to make a profit;
• It is important for the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds to be in surplus as far as one can project out;
• The cost of a Government program is too much on grounds of cost alone rather than on grounds of cost relative to net benefit for public purpose;
• We need new taxes because otherwise the Federal Government cannot afford a particular program;
• The deficit is too high;
• The deficit-to-GDP ratio is too high;
• The debt is too high;
• The debt-to-GDP ratio is too high;
• Etc.

We will not tolerate your talking this way anymore, because to do so is to share the frame of the austerians that the Federal Government has financial constraints such that its solvency can be threatened by the amount of its deficit spending. Once you share that frame you have made a major concession guaranteeing that in any budget negotiation you will be pushed into a settlement that, at best limits spending needed for public purpose based on the lie that there is such a constraint, and at worst both limits necessary spending and also increases inequality by cutting taxes for the wealthy and raising taxes and fees for the less well off.

So, we will not accept the deficit/debt lie anymore. We will treat it with zero tolerance, and its author as an opponent of real progressives. If you must tell these lies, and play this progressive give-up game, then call yourself something besides “a progressive.” So, to Democrats and especially the “progressives” among them, don’t you dare cut the safety net, or any other programs people need, using the excuse that we need to cut or contain the deficit, because we know that is a lie.

And when a Congressman or Senator, or candidate gives us this lie as a reason for why they voted against an otherwise good bill; then we, the adherents to this manifesto, will make every effort to defeat that person in the next election, either through a primary, or in the general election as the case may be, regardless of what else they stand for. We intend this to be a bright red line in the political sand. If you cross it, we will end your career!