The national debt, at $19.97 trillion and climbing, does not tell the real story behind America’s true national debt, which is properly identified as the “fiscal gap.”

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The Fiscal Gap Jumped 30% – and Nobody Noticed

Investors Business Daily, March 10, 2017 – Excerpts:

Given the tumultuous news cycle of the past month I’d understand if you haven’t had a chance to read the Treasury Department’s latest 266-page Financial Report of the United States Government (FRUSG)….

The fiscal gap is a key snapshot of the government’s financial health that estimates the tax increases and spending cuts required to maintain the current ratio of national debt to GDP. That’s a more meaningful number than the national debt alone because it also takes into account money coming into the government’s coffers, and the implications on future public policy. If the government were an individual, that would be akin to comparing a person’s credit card bill with their pay stub.

The two chief culprits responsible for the rising fiscal gap are Social Security and Medicare. For years, politicians have promised these politically popular benefits without increasing the taxes necessary to fund them. Not increasing taxes correspondingly has led to massive underfunding.

Social Security and Medicare expenses continue to rise year after year at the same time that less money is flowing into the system, which increases the fiscal gap. Entitlement programs represent the federal government’s largest expense (far exceeding defense spending), but for political expediency their costs are not accounted for in the national debt.

If entitlement obligations were counted, the true national debt figure would actually be around $100 trillion, as opposed to the government’s current $20 trillion figure. The more holistic $100 trillion number breaks down to a $308,000 burden for every American taxpayer. These bills are real, and they’ll come due one day.

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And how are individual states faring on the fiscal front…?

“From Horrific To Catastrophic”: Court Ruling Sends Illinois Into Financial Abyss

“Friday’s ruling by the U.S. District Court takes the state’s finances from horrific to catastrophic,” Comptroller Susana Mendoza, a Democrat, said in an emailed statement after the ruling. “Payments to the state’s pension funds; state payroll including legislator pay; General State Aid to schools and payments to local governments will likely have to be cut.”  ZeroHedge – July 1, 2017

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Chris Christie Announces New Jersey Government Shutdown, Orders State Of Emergency

Illinois, Maine, Connecticut: the end of the old fiscal year and the failure of numerous states to enter the new one with a budget, means that some of America’s most populous states have seen their local governments grind to a halt overnight until some spending agreement is reached. Now we can also add New Jersey to this list.               ZeroHedge – July 1, 2017

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Connecticut Gov. Signs Exec. Order Taking Over Spending After State Fails To Pass Budget

Connecticut’s General Assembly failed to pass a version of the state budget on Friday, forcing Democratic Gov. Daniel P. Malloy to sign an executive order to take control of state spending.  ZeroHedge – June 30, 2017

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Maine To Begin Shutdown After Gov. LePage Says He Won’t Sign Budget Bill

The first U.S. state to shut down heading into the new fiscal year may not be Illinois, not Connecticut, but… Maine.  ZeroHedge – June 30, 2017
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Add to this growing list of states with growing budget shortfalls: Massachusetts, Kansas…

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Does our Federal Government have any credible plan to deal with our massive debt overhang?  Answer:  No

Do any of our problem states have any type of credible plan to restore fiscal health?  Answer: No

Is there a credible solution for this gargantuan debt dilemma?  Answer:  Yes.

$1.02 trillion annual budget surpluses yearly 2017-2021: The Leviticus 25 Plan

And massive tax revenue gains and reduced entitlement costs for state governments.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2390)

A LOOK BACK – July 2012:

Globally, there is approximately “$100 trillion in bank assets” (bank assets are primarily comprised of their loan base).  And for the U.S. those bank assets (loans)are about “$20 trillion held in the U.S. and abroad.”

The “Base Money” (which is “currency in circulation plus bank reserves held at Central banks”) behind those massive loan levels amounts to a mere “$8.5 to $9 trillion dollars.”  This degree of leverage in the global banking system means that currently, “We are in a baseless monetary system,” according to Brodsky.

More from Brodsky:  “The marketplace forces deleveraging, and there are two ways to deleverage. One is to let credit deteriorate on its own in the marketplace. And the other is to manufacture new currency or bank reserves. Those are the only two ways to deleverage a balance sheet.

What policy makers do not want to see is bank asset deterioration. That would lead to all sorts of bad things. You would see banks fail. You would see bank systems fail. You would see debtors fail and it would just feed on itself in an accelerating fashion. And so monetary policy makers have no choice but to deleverage in the other way, which is to colloquially print money; to manufacture electronic credits and call them bank reserves.

And to the degree that that extends into the private sector where debtors begin to fail en masse, that would increase failures of the bank assets in turn. And it would end the mortgage bond securities market, for example, and the leveraged loan markets, and end the private sector shadow banking system. So it does not work for anybody to have credit deteriorate. The only way to deleverage an economy is as we are saying: to create new base money with which to do it.”

Brodsky Summary:  “What policy makers do not want to see is bank asset deterioration. That would lead to all sorts of bad things. You would see banks fail. You would see bank systems fail. You would see debtors fail and it would just feed on itself in an accelerating fashion. And so monetary policy makers have no choice but to deleverage in the other way, which is to colloquially print money; to manufacture electronic credits and call them bank reserves.

And to the degree that that extends into the private sector where debtors begin to fail en masse, that would increase failures of the bank assets in turn. And it would end the mortgage bond securities market, for example, and the leveraged loan markets, and end the private sector shadow banking system. So it does not work for anybody to have credit deteriorate. The only way to deleverage an economy is as we are saying: to create new base money with which to do it.

The point here is you can either monetize debt or you can monetize (sell) assets. Or you revalue an asset on the balance sheet already of the Treasury or the Fed. And obviously that asset, we think, is gold. And that is the monetary asset that they have always reverted in the past. And that is the one we think that currencies, currently baseless currencies will be devalued against.

And so that we think is the mechanism that is ultimately going to play out whether in the marketplace or through some policy administered devaluation. Currencies are going to be devalued and that is where we sit right now. Timing this is impossible. We think the amount it would have to be devalued by, getting back to your original question, has got to be the amount of or something close to the amount of the gap (tens of US$ trillions) between bank assets and bank reserves. So it is a significant number.”

Full article / podcast from Peak Prosperity:  http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/79208/paul-brodsky-central-banks-are-nearing-inflate-or-die-stage?utm_campaign=weekly_newsletter_3&utm_source=newsletter_2012-07-07&utm_medium=email_newsletter&utm_content=node_title_79208

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Meet America’s great debt neutralizer, offering massive debt reduction in both public and private sectors.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2355)

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Record debt levels are choking corporations in America.

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Corporate Debt To EBITDA Hits All Time High

“When using the aggregated data, both gross and net corporate debt/EBITDA are at or near record leverage levels, well above prior cycle peaks.” – Morgan Stanley  Apr 21, 2017

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America is drowning in debt.  We need re-targeted liquidity, and here is the solution:

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2279)

Debt is surging in the U.S.

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Hoisington Quarterly Review and Outlook, Q1 2017

By Lacy Hunt and Van Hoisington

Excerpts:

Debt. Total domestic nonfinancial debt, excluding off balance sheet liabilities such as leases and unfunded pension liabilities, surged to a record 254.8% of GDP in 2016, 5.6% greater than in 2009 when Lehman Brothers failed (Chart 2). Total debt, which includes domestic nonfinancial, foreign and bank debt, amounted to 372.5% of GDP in 2016, compared with 251.9% of GDP in 2006, the final year of previous tightening cycle, which, in turn, was greater than in any earlier time from 1870 through 2006.

First, in the initial quarter of 2017, the year-over-year change in the monetary base was -4.8%. This comes after sharp contractions in each of the previous four quarters, the largest such decreases since the end of World War II (Chart 3). Some argue that this unprecedented weakness in the monetary base is not relevant since the depository institutions still hold $2.1 trillion of excess reserves (defined as the difference between total reserves and required reserves). The textbook writers emphasize that excess reserves are the key to money and credit expansion. But, the multiple expansion of bank reserves so diligently explained in the textbooks was written for a regulatory environment that no longer exists, which is the second different condition.

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America is drowning in debt.

There is one dynamic solution:  Grant U.S. citizens the same access to liquidity that was provided to Wall Street’s financial sector during 2008-2010 – to help them unwind their debt profiles and return to ‘financial stability.’

It is time to unwind debt at ground level – and pump up America’s Monetary Base.

It is time to restore economic liberty for American families and set them on course for long-term ‘financial health.’

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2276)

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings;  the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”  -Winston Churchill

“Socialism means slavery.”  -Lord Acton

“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common, but one word, equality.  But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”  -Alexis de Tocqueville

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Why Politicians Win (And Workers Lose) Under Socialism

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America’s plan for freedom and liberty:

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2272)

The recent Wall Street Journal editorial by Justin Haskins and Michael Hamilton of the Heartland Institute was a step in the right direction.  At the same time, it was severely compromised by several major flaws…

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Give Medicaid Dollars Directly to Patients – WSJ

As Republicans take another crack at devising a plan to replace ObamaCare, here’s an idea they should consider: Give each Medicaid patient a health savings account—and put $7,000 in it every year.

Under ObamaCare, Medicaid has become the only option for millions of Americans. But that doesn’t mean much if the doctors in their communities don’t accept new patients through the program—and 30% of physicians don’t.

Full article accessed via Lux Llibertas:

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“Give Medicaid Dollars Directly to Patients” – flaws:

This plan does nothing to offer exemptions from ObamaCare.

This plan does nothing to benefit working families NOT on Medicaid.

It does nothing to untangle and change the complexion of other government health care programs like Medicare, VA, FEHB, TRICARE.

This plan is an ongoing, open-ended cash-based subsidy.

There is a better way.

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is the only comprehensive, citizen-centered health care plan in America.  It ‘resets’ the health care industry to present a clean, efficient and responsible system.  Most importantly, this plan restores individual freedom and liberty for all participating Americans.

The Plan:

1. The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is available to each and every U.S. citizen – with no coverage mandates. Each U.S. citizen who wishes to participate will be granted a full and complete exemption from the ACA.
2. This plan offers freedom of choice and equal justice for all. Those Americans who might wish to stay with the ACA may stay (‘If you like your ObamaCare, you can keep your ObamaCare’).
3. Each participating U.S. citizen shall receive a credit extension, through a special Federal Reserve Citizens Credit Facility, of $25,000, electronically deposited into a Medical Savings Account (MSA) – for direct allocation toward family health care needs.
4. Private insurance – Families shall be allowed to enroll in high-deductible ($10,000 – $15,000) major medical plans, to include basic, ‘no frills’ medical plans which best suit their individual needs and desires. These streamlined plans would lower premium costs for employees and employers, encouraging employers to cost-share savings with employees through incentive-based employer MSA contributions.
5. Policies would not be automatically loaded with expensive government healthcare mandates.
6. Those with extraordinary medical issues may be included in a high-risk category, with such plans being eligible for a government subsidy (similar to current Medicare Advantage).
7. Federal / state programs – Individuals enrolled in Medicare / Medicaid / VA / TRICARE / FEHB programs would maintain their covered status, with an annual deductible of $5,000 per year per enrolled family member, for a period of five years for those benefits. The dedicated MSA funds would fully fund the offset for the higher ($5,000) deductible feature for that five-year period. MSA funds could also be used to pay Medicare supplement premiums and other potential co-pay obligations.
8. Where health care services paid by patients directly with MSA funds, providers would not be bound by federal / state rules pertaining to Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), and other unnecessary administrative burdens.

Benefits:                                                                                 

Lower health care costs – With the elimination of millions of minor insurance claims across the nation over the course of each month, system-wide efficiency would improve, medical costs would drop significantly, and the direct patient-provider relationship would be restored. Medical professionals would not have to answer to HMOs, insurance companies, or government agencies in providing basic day-to-day healthcare access for their patients.

Scoring – if 300 million U.S. citizens were to participate in the plan, the total dollar transfer into family-based Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) would amount to $7.5 trillion.

The potential cost savings from the $5,000 deductible provision for the approximate 150 million people currently enrolled in Medicare (55 million), Medicaid (72 million), VA (6.16 million), TRICARE (9.5 million), and FEHB (8.2 million) would amount to just  under $3.75 trillion over the first 5 years (or, one-half the $7.5 trillion initial roll out cost).

Summary:

This plan would generate trillions of dollars in cost savings from streamlining, vastly improved efficiency, and reductions in waste and fraud.

This plan would improve quality and ease of access to health care for all participating Americans.

 For patients: It would dramatically lower the cost of health care, while improving quality and access for all who chose to participate.

 For providers:  It would restore the patient-provider relationship and significantly reduce massive cost and time burdens imposed by a centralized system.

 The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan an integral part of a larger, comprehensive economic plan:

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2267)

The Fed is giving ‘free money’ to the world’s largest banks, and the big winners, according to the Wall Street Journal, are foreign banks.  The latest report: $22 billion annually.

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   (FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 12/24/15) 
   By Katy Burne 

Some of the biggest beneficiaries of the Federal Reserve’s recent interest-rate increase will be foreign banks.

Units of foreign banks this year [2015] received nearly half the roughly $6.25 billion in interest the Fed paid banks on the money, called reserves, they park with the Fed, the central bank’s data show. Those institutions control just about 15% of all bank assets in the U.S.

The Fed’s interest payments to banks are likely to roughly double next year because in mid-December it raised the rate it pays on reserves to 0.50% from 0.25%. The amounts could rise even more in coming years if the central bank continues lifting the rate, called the interest on excess reserves rate, or IOER.

Foreign banks receive a disproportionate share of the interest payments because they own an outsize share of total reserves.

[snip]

U.S.-chartered banks, including those owned by foreign banking companies, pay premiums to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — ranging from 0.05% to 0.35% — based on their assets, including reserves but minus other capital measures. But U.S. lenders that don’t take deposits, and firms incorporated overseas whose U.S. operations don’t take deposits, don’t have to pay FDIC fees.

Both foreign and domestic banks can borrow money overnight at low short-term rates and park them at the Fed at a higher rate, earning a profit or “spread.” But for some foreign firms, the spread can be larger because they often don’t have to pay the FDIC fees.

To illustrate: Before the Fed’s rate increase, banks paid about 0.13% to borrow overnight in the federal-funds market and earned 0.25% on their reserves — a difference of 0.12 percentage point. A foreign bank could get a spread of 0.12%. Domestic banks that paid FDIC fees of about 0.07% on average on their insured deposits would be left with a spread of about 0.05%.

After the rate increase, both types of banks could pay about 0.35% to borrow overnight and get 0.50% on their reserves. That is a 0.15% spread for some foreign banks. But domestic banks, after paying the FDIC fees, get a roughly 0.08% spread.

The New York branches of Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG each had about $40 billion in reserves at the Fed as of June 30, earning about $100 million in interest.

[snip]

Raising the IOER rate to 0.50% from 0.25% will increase the Fed’s interest payments to banks to about $13 billion annually, assuming reserves stay at the same level, said Karen Petrou of Federal Financial Analytics Inc.

The Fed is subsidizing both U.S. and foreign banks, said Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed economist now at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and the latter have a proportionately larger advantage. “I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten more attention,” Mr. Gagnon said.

[snip]

The Fed started paying interest on reserves in 2008. It plans to use the IOER rate as its primary lever for controlling short-term rates, in part because its postcrisis stimulus policies left markets awash in money, rendering its old tools less effective.

Still, some Fed officials have expressed concern about how it looks to have the central bank making big interest payments to banks.

James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said in an August radio interview that if Congress isn’t comfortable with the size of payments to banks, in particular foreign ones, “They should definitely tell us right now, because . . . we would need to change our exit strategy dramatically if we cannot rely on the interest on excess reserves as being a tool of monetary policy.”

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So the U.S. Federal Reserve is doling out billions of dollars annually in free money handouts to the world’s largest banks, the very banks whose leveraged speculation strategies precipitated the great financial crisis.  The very banks that foreclosed on millions of American home owners.  The very banks that engaged in blatantly criminal FX and LIBOR rate manipulation, mortgage fraud and predatory lending.

And meanwhile, U.S. citizens are scraping along, neck deep in debt, stalled out with stagnant real median household income growth, lathered up in suffocating social welfarism…?

And Congress is sitting their heads up their ‘rear ends’… and no plan whatsoever to change anything related to the economic mess we are sitting in.

You have got to be kidding me..(!)

It is time for U.S. citizens to be granted the same access to liquidity that the Fed has provided, through various funding facilities, to Wall Street’s financial sector and continues to provide via IOER payments.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2260)

The Wall Street Journal (Letters, March 21, 2017) published a letter from a New Jersey physician which included this excerpt on-target excerpt:

“If costs of delivering world-class health care are driven downward, then government mandates, overregulation and new taxes may not be necessary. Those of us who provide medical and surgical services each day know what it takes to stop the bleeding.  All the politicians need to do is ask.

Lack of price transparency, drug advertising hype, defensive medicine, self-referrals, pre-approved hurdles, insurance billing labyrinths high overhead,  big patient subsidies, discontinuity of care, electronic data keeping, specialty fee disparities, top-down decision-making, emerging hospital cartels, and case work overload are some of the systemic flaws that must be addressed sooner rather than later.”  – Jonathan L. Fox, M.D. Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine, Northfield, N.J.

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And here is how to address those “systemic flaws,” and gain immediate control of skyrocketing premiums, runaway government health care spending, unfriendly and complicated access mechanisms, and the diminishment of freedom:

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan offers a powerful new access strategy for patients receiving medical and pharmaceutical services, home medical equipment, and home care services.

It is as simple as renting a movie.

The Plan grants citizens the freedom to pay directly, in person, for their week-to-week health care purchases. It cuts out layers of bureaucracy and middlemen … simplifies access to health care and restores genuine ‘patient-provider’ relationships.

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is the only comprehensive, citizen-centered health care plan in America.  It ‘resets’ the health care industry to present a clean, efficient and responsible system.  Most importantly, this plan restores individual freedom and liberty for all participating Americans.

The Plan:

1. The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is available to each and every U.S. citizen – with no coverage mandates. Each U.S. citizen who wishes to participate will be granted a full and complete exemption from the ACA.
2. This plan offers freedom of choice and equal justice for all. Those Americans who might wish to stay with the ACA may stay (‘If you like your ObamaCare, you can keep your ObamaCare’).
3. Each participating U.S. citizen shall receive a credit extension, through a special Federal Reserve Citizens Credit Facility, of $25,000, electronically deposited into a Medical Savings Account (MSA) – for direct allocation toward family health care needs.
4. Private insurance – Families shall be allowed to enroll in high-deductible ($10,000 – $15,000) major medical plans, to include basic, ‘no frills’ medical plans which best suit their individual needs and desires. These streamlined plans would lower premium costs for employees and employers, encouraging employers to cost-share savings with employees through incentive-based employer MSA contributions.
5. Policies would not be automatically loaded with expensive government healthcare mandates.
6. Those with extraordinary medical issues may be included in a high-risk category, with such plans being eligible for a government subsidy (similar to current Medicare Advantage).
7. Federal / state programs – Individuals enrolled in Medicare / Medicaid / VA / TRICARE / FEHB programs would maintain their covered status, with an annual deductible of $5,000 per year per enrolled family member, for a period of five years for those benefits. The dedicated MSA funds would fully fund the offset for the higher ($5,000) deductible feature for that five-year period. MSA funds could also be used to pay Medicare supplement premiums and other potential co-pay obligations.
8. Where health care services paid by patients directly with MSA funds, providers would not be bound by federal / state rules pertaining to Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), and other unnecessary administrative burdens.

Continue:  The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan 2017: America’s clean and affordable alternative to ObamaCare. Ready to Launch.

The ObamaCare replacement plan sailed into some stiff headwinds in the U.S. House on Friday over a number of significant concerns:

1. 14 million Americans would lose insurance by 2018, rising up to 24 million losing coverage by 2026.

2. The new ObamaCare replacement plan remained ‘mandate-heavy.’

3. It was too costly and inefficient, with the already high ObamaCare premiums spiking another 15-20% in 2018-19.

Meet the comprehensive health care plan that overcomes these objections: The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan.

Number of Americans that will lose coverage: 0

If you like your ObamaCare you can keep your ObamaCare.  All others who wish to be granted an exemption, along with a $25,000 HSA deposit per citizen (see plan for further details).

Mandates: 0

Citizens may choose their providers and insurance plans, and allocate their health care resources in the manner that suite fulfills their needs and desires.

Efficiency: 99%

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan eliminates government red tape and enormous amounts of ‘middle-man’ cost and interference.

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan 2017: America’s clean and affordable alternative to ObamaCare. Ready to Launch.

A part of America’s dynamic, comprehensive economic acceleration plan:

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2192)