Central Banks Will Do What They Can To Preserve (Official) Independence

ZeroHedge, Oct 28, 2022 – Excerpts:

By Simon White, Bloomberg Markets reporter and analyst

… Years of QE have led to trillions of dollars of interest-bearing central-bank liabilities that, now that rates are well above zero in the US, UK and Europe, are incurring ever greater costs.

The Fed is now “making a loss,” as what it pays out in interest significantly exceeds what it receives on its assets. It is not a real loss, but it means the Fed will not start remitting money to the Treasury again until this loss is made up for by positive income. Even though the Fed cannot go bankrupt (in dollar terms), the political optics on this may start to look bad, too (ZH: as we first discussed this in “The Fed Is Now Paying $500 Million To A Handful Of Banks Every Day, And Suddenly Has A Very Big Problem“).

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The Treasury Market Is The Fed’s Next Crisis

ZeroHedge, Oct 28, 2022 – Excerpts:

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The Fed’s next crisis is already brewing. Unlike 2008, where “subprime mortgages” froze counter-party trading in the credit markets as Lehman Brothers failed, in 2022, it might just be the $27 Trillion Treasury market.

…. Today, more than ever, the functioning of the economy requires ever-increasing levels of debt. From corporations issuing debt for stock buybacks to operations to consumers leveraging up to sustain their standard of living. The Government requires continuing debt issuance to fund spending programs as it requires the entirety of tax revenue to pay for social welfare and interest on the debt.

For a better perspective, it currently requires more than $70 Trillion in debt to sustain the economy. Before 1982, the economy grew faster than the debt.

Debt issuance is not a problem as long as interest rates remain low enough to sustain consumption and there is a “buyer” for the debt.

A Lack Of A Marginal Buyer

…. When debt buyers evaporate, the ability to issue debt to fund spending becomes increasingly problematic. Such was a point made by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently.

“We are worried about a loss of adequate liquidity in the [bond] market.”

The problem is that outstanding Treasury debt has expanded by $7 trillion since 2019. However, at the same time, the major financial institutions that act as the “primary dealers” are unwilling to serve as the net buyers. One of the primary reasons for this is that for the past decade, the banks and brokerages had a willing buyer to which they could offload Treasuries: The Federal Reserve.

Today, the Federal Reserve is no longer acting as a willing buyer. Consequently, the primary dealers are unwilling to buy because no other party wants the bonds. As a function, the liquidity of the Treasury market continues to evaporate. Robert Burgess summed it up nicely:

“The word “crisis” is not hyperbole. Liquidity is quickly evaporating. Volatility is soaring. Once unthinkable, even demand at the government’s debt auctions is becoming a concern. Conditions are so worrisome that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen took the unusual step Wednesday of expressing concern about a potential breakdown in trading, saying after a speech in Washington that her department is “worried about a loss of adequate liquidity” in the $23.7 trillion market for U.S. government securities. Make no mistake, if the Treasury market seizes up, the global economy and financial system will have much bigger problems than elevated inflation.”

Such isn’t the first time this has happened. Each time the Federal Reserve previously hiked rates, tried to stop “quantitative easing,” or both, a “crisis event” occurred. Such required an immediate response by the Federal Reserve to provide an “accommodative policy.”

“All this is coming as Bloomberg News reports that the biggest, most powerful buyers of Treasuries, from Japanese pensions and life insurers to foreign governments and U.S. commercial banks, are all pulling back at the same time. ‘We need to find a new marginal buyer of Treasuries as central banks and banks overall are exiting stage left.” – Bloomberg

It’s Not A Problem Until Something Breaks

As discussed previously, while there are actual “warning signs” of fragility in the financial markets, they are not enough to force the Federal Reserve to change monetary policy. The Fed noted as much in its recent meeting minutes.

“Several participants noted that, particularly in the current highly uncertain global economic and financial environment, it would be important to calibrate the pace of further policy tightening with the aim of mitigating the risk of significant adverse effects on the economic outlook.”

“What should be most concerning to the Fed and the Treasury Department is deteriorating demand at U.S. debt auctions. A key measure called the bid-to-cover ratio at the government’s offering Wednesday of $32 billion in benchmark 10-year notes was more than one standard deviation below the average for the last year.” Bloomberg News.

A crisis in the Treasury market is likely much greater than the Fed realizes. That is why, according to Bloomberg, there are already potential plans for the Government to step in and buy back bonds.

“When we warned last week that Treasury buybacks might begin to enter the debt management conversation, we didn’t expect them to jump so abruptly into the limelight. September’s liquidity strains may have sharpened the Treasury’s interest in buybacks, but this is not just a knee-jerk response to recent market developments.”

If something is breaking in the Treasury market, it will likely be time to buy both stocks and long-dated Treasuries as the next “Fed or Treasury Put” returns.

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America’s Prosperity Blueprint:

The Leviticus 25 Plan will eliminate an enormous portion of America’s debt overhang, both private and public.

It will restore financial security for hard-working, tax-paying Americans and rejuvenate a free-market economic system.

It will save the U.S. Treasury Department trillions of dollars in outlays and generate massive amounts of new tax revenue.

Economic Scoring links:

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 billion Federal Budget Surpluses (2023-2027), Part 1: Overview, Deficit Projection

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 2: Federal Income Tax and Means-Tested Welfare Recapture Benefits.

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 3: Medicaid/CHIP and Medicare Recapture Benefits

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 4: VA, TRICARE, FEHB, SSDI Recapture Benefits

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 5: Subtotals, Interest Expense Savings, Summary

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (5014 downloads)   

The Leviticus 25 Plan has the power to fix these ‘imbalances’…

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Rents spike as big-pocketed investors buy mobile home parks

MICHAEL CASEY and CAROLYN THOMPSON

July 25, 2022

LOCKPORT, N.Y. (AP) — Excerpts:

Nationwide…  institutional investors, led by private equity firms and real estate investment trusts and sometimes funded by pension funds, swoop in to buy mobile home parks. Critics contend mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are fueling the problem by backing a growing number of investor loans.

The purchases are putting residents in a bind, since most mobile homes — despite the name — cannot be moved easily or cheaply. Owners are forced to either accept unaffordable rent increases, spend thousands of dollars to move their home, or abandon it and lose tens of thousands of dollars they invested.

“You’re putting people in a snare and a trap, where they have no ability to defend themselves,” he added.

Driven by some of the strongest returns in real estate, investors have shaken up a once-sleepy sector that’s home to more than 22 million mostly low-income Americans in 43,000 communities. Many aggressively promote the parks as ensuring a steady return — by repeatedly raising rent.

There’s also a growing industry, featuring how-to books, webinars and even a mobile home university, that offers tips to attract small investors.

“You went from an environment where you had a local owner or manager who took care of things as they needed fixing, to where you had people who were looking at a cost-benefit analysis for how to get the penny squeezed lowest,” Bellus said. “You combine it with an idea that we can just keep raising the rent, and these people can’t leave.”

George McCarthy, president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based think tank, said parks containing about a fifth of mobile home lots nationwide have been purchased by institutional investors over the past eight years.

McCarthy singled out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for guaranteeing the loans as part of a what the lending giants bill as expanding affordable housing. Since 2014, the Lincoln Institute estimates Freddie Mac alone provided $9.6 billion in financing for the purchase of more than 950 communities across 44 states.

A spokesman for Freddie Mac countered that it had purchased loans for less than 3% of the mobile home communities nationwide, and about 60% of those were refinances.

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Note – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were bailed out in the fall of 2008 to the tune of $187 billion from the U.S. Treasury Department, which was in turn receiving massive support via direct ‘Treasury debt’ purchases from the Federal Reserve (funded by freshly created electronic money).

And now we have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac backing “big-pocketed investors,” scheming for profits by spiking the rents of mobile home park residents.

There is a way to ‘fix’ these types of imbalances.

Allow individual U.S. citizens the opportunity to upgrade their standard of living by moving out of mobile home parks and into their very own ‘rent-to-own’ homes – funded by direct liquidity extensions from a Federal Reserve Citizens Credit Facility.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac paid back their $187 bailout bonanza over the course of the following 10 years.

U.S. citizens, under the provisions of The Leviticus 25 Plan will also pay back their liquidity extensions – over the ensuing 10-15 years.

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 – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (5005 downloads 

WSJ: Subsidies Only Feed Inflation

Even if they ostensibly go to consumers, they end up enriching companies by enabling higher prices.

By Tomas J . Philipson

The Wall Street Journal – Sept. 15, 2022

President Biden insists he is fighting inflation by making things more affordable for middle-class American households. To that end, his administration and Congress trotted out big-dollar subsidies for consumers of green energy, drugs and higher education last month. But the bulk of that federal cash will likely end up in the pockets of companies, not consumers. August may go down as an epic month of feeding the fat cats.

In a normal market, sellers receive the price buyers pay. If you have a garage sale where your chair sells for $100, you get all $100. But there are virtually no such markets in the U.S. anymore because taxes and subsidies jam a wedge between what buyers pay and sellers receive. Companies pay more for workers than workers take home because of income and payroll taxes. Poor patients pay less than what hospitals receive because of Medicaid subsidies.

Economists recognize that government intervention in a market results not in a single price but two—a “demand price” paid by buyers and a “supply price” received by sellers.

When a market is subsidized, buyers and sellers both typically benefit through a rise in the supply price and a fall in the demand price. Companies get more but consumers pay less, courtesy of taxpayers. But which party the law designates as the recipient of a subsidy—consumers or companies—doesn’t determine who gains from the subsidy. That’s determined by the structure of subsidies and market forces, which is why the consumer subsidies launched in August will likely amount to a generous corporate-welfare program.

Consider the new regulations accompanying the student-loan forgiveness program. The Biden administration is heavily expanding income-driven repayment, which caps what borrowers pay each month. The implication seems to be that students can borrow more at no additional cost. “Most of these plans cancel a borrower’s remaining debt once they make 20 years of monthly payments,” according to the White House. Universities can raise tuition (the supply price) without affecting the total loan payment by students (the demand price). Or the student can borrow more than necessary and invest the money with no intention of ever paying back the loan, reducing the effective tuition further. Unfortunately, the gift from taxpayers will likely go to the most expensive schools and the ones with the largest endowments.

Likewise, the administration pitched many of the green-energy subsidies of the Inflation Reduction Act as a relief to consumers. Subsidies for heat pumps, rooftop solar panels and electric air conditioners will supposedly make homes more energy-efficient and therefore cheaper to maintain. Tax credits for electric vehicles are meant to hasten the transition away from gasoline, but manufacturers are already raising supply prices by the exact amount of the subsidies, with demand prices remaining constant. This is the predicted result of a subsidy when suppliers have market power—as the electric-vehicle oligopoly does—and when there is excess demand for the product. When markets are more competitive, companies pass the value of the subsidies on to consumers because if they don’t, a competitor will.

The Inflation Reduction Act’s caps on copays in the Medicare drug program ensure further distortions to that already convoluted market. The maximum demand price at the pharmacy—$2,000 starting in 2025 under the Inflation Reduction Act—will show up for consumers as higher premiums, but taxpayers already subsidize 75% of those. The bottom line is that demand prices will be further decoupled from increased supply prices.

Mr. Biden may genuinely believe these consumer subsidies will help take the inflationary pressure off the household budgets of middle-class Americans. But the hard truth is that market forces decide who benefits from government subsidies. That’s why supply-side competition is often the best way to protect consumers from higher prices.

Mr. Philipson is an economist at the University of Chicago. He served as a member of President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers and was acting chairman, 2019-20.

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The Leviticus 25 Plan is a powerful economic acceleration plan that restores free market dynamics and supply-side competition through the direct allocation of resources by participating citizens.

Rather than ‘feeding inflation’ and ‘feeding the fat cats’ through ongoing big-government subsidies – which serve primarily to perpetuate the ever-growing dependence on government-based entitlement programs and pump hundreds of billions of dollars of additional debt into America’s annual budget deficits….

The Leviticus 25 Plan will substantially reduce citizen dependence on government. It will strengthen the labor force by re-incentivizing work, reduce the size of government and the scope of governmental control over the daily affairs of citizens.

The Leviticus 25 Plan will strengthen the financial security of U.S. citizens, and it will generate $583 billion budget surpluses annually over the initial five years of activation (2023-2027).

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 – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (0 downloads)

Household Debt in America has now surpassed the $16 trillion mark. Corporate Debt (non-financial) has climbed over $12.583 trillion. The National Debt has reached $31 trillion.

America has an inflation problem. But America’s debt crisis is far and away more serious.

Our Washington politicians, Democrats and Republicans, have no politically viable plan to deal with this crisis.

Main Street America’s Republicans do have a plan – the most powerful debt-busting economic acceleration plan on the face of the earth…

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US National Debt Blows Past $31 Trillion

ZeroHedge, Wednesday, Oct 05, 2022 – Excerpts:

…”So many of the concerns we’ve had about our growing debt path are starting to show themselves as we both grow our debt and grow our rates of interest,” said Michael Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, in a statement to the NY Times. “Too many people were complacent about our debt path in part because rates were so low.“

Higher rates could add an additional $1 trillion to what the federal government spends on interest payments this decade, according to Peterson Foundation estimates. That is on top of the record $8.1 trillion in debt costs that the Congressional Budget Office projected in May. Expenditures on interest could exceed what the United States spends on national defense by 2029, if interest rates on public debt rise to be just one percentage point higher than what the C.B.O. estimated over the next few years.

Michael Maharrey of SchiffGold notes;…

[T]here is no end to the borrowing and spending in sight. In August alone, the US government ran a massive $219.6 billion budget deficit.

While spending has slowed somewhat with the end of pandemic-era programs, the Biden administration continues to burn through roughly half-a-trillion dollars every single month. With one month left in the fiscal year, the government has spent just over $5.35 trillion.

And there is more spending coming down the pike.

The US government is still handing out COVID stimulus and it wants more.  Congress recently pushed through another massive spending bill. Meanwhile, the US continues to shower money on Ukraine and other countries around the world. And we haven’t begun to see the impact of student loan forgiveness.

On top of increased spending, rising interest rates will balloon the debt even more.

Every increase in interest rate raises the federal government’s interest expense. So far in fiscal 2022, the US Treasury has forked out $471 billion just to fund the government’s interest payments.

To put that number into context, at this point in fiscal 2021 the Treasury’s interest expense stood at $356 billion. That represents a 30%  year-on-year increase. Interest expense ranks as the sixth largest budget expense category, about $250 billion below Medicare. If interest rates remain elevated or continue rising, interest expenses could climb rapidly into the top three federal expenses. (You can read a more in-depth analysis of the national debt HERE.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this is exactly what will happen. It projects interest payments will triple from nearly $400 billion in fiscal 2022 to $1.2 trillion in 2032. And it’s worse than that. The CBO made this estimate in May. Interest rates are already higher than those used in its analysis.

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The Problem of Debt

In the first place, a large national debt stunts economic growth.

According to the National Debt Clock, the debt to GDP ratio is 125.12%. Studies have shown that a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 90% retards economic growth by about 30%. This throws cold water on the conventional “spend now, worry about the debt later” mantra, along with the frequent claim that “we can grow ourselves out of the debt” now popular on both sides of the aisle in DC.

More immediately, the national debt is a big problem for the Federal Reserve as it drives up interest rates hoping to tame inflation.

The US government can’t keep borrowing and spending without the Fed monetizing the debt. It needs the central bank to buy Treasuries to prop up demand. Without the Fed’s intervention in the bond market, prices will tank, driving interest rates on US debt even higher.

A paper published by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank acknowledged that the central bank can’t slay inflation unless the US government gets its spending under control. In a nutshell, the authors argue that the Fed can’t control inflation alone. US government fiscal policy contributes to inflationary pressure and makes it impossible for the Fed to do its job.

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Note again this key acknowledgement from the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank: “…the central bank [Fed] can’t slay inflation unless the US government gets its spending under control.“

The Leviticus 25 Plan will allow for an enormous reduction in outlays, and it will generate massive new tax revenue gains for federal, state, and local government entities.

It will generate $583 billion surpluses at the federal level each of its first five years of activation (2023-2027), and it will completely pay for itself over the next 10-15 years.

It will revitalize economic growth, ramp up productivity, re-establish a citizen centered health care system in the U.S., and restore economic liberty.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is loaded up and ready to launch.

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 – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (1146 downloads)

The Silent Price You’ll Pay for Our Mounting National Debt – WSJ

The cost of borrowing is near untenable levels. If we aren’t already in a ‘doom loop,’ we’re getting close.

By Red Jahncke – President, Townsend Group International, LLC

WSJ, Sept. 29, 2022 – Excerpts:

… The gross interest expense on the national debt hit $88 billion in August, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement. That’s $1.06 trillion a year.

Interest on the national debt is exploding and heading toward what economists refer to as a “doom loop”—the vicious circle in which the government’s borrowing to pay interest generates yet more interest and yet more borrowing.

Net interest expense (gross expense minus the interest received) hit $63 billion in August, or $756 billion a year. That’s a lot of money in the context of a $6 trillion federal budget and a $25 trillion economy.

The August numbers barely reflect the impact of the Fed’s interest-rate hikes between March and July, much less last Wednesday’s increase and the additional 1.25% by year’s end implied by the Fed’s new guidance. It’s highly likely that gross interest expense will rise well above $1 trillion a year and surpass Social Security as the largest item in the federal budget.

The Fed’s more hawkish guidance calls for “higher rates for longer,” even if it brings on recession. The central bank is also shrinking its holdings of Treasurys under its quantitative-tightening policy, requiring the Treasury Department to find alternative buyers. Weak demand will likely push rates higher, if not destabilize the Treasury market to some degree.

Yet even if the Fed backs off, or recession intervenes, that won’t relieve pressure on Uncle Sam.

Treasury debt has reached record levels, and higher federal interest expense is already baked in. That will constrain Washington’s capacity to deliver fiscal stimulus to a struggling economy during the next recession. Constrained or not, the government will doubtless attempt to do so. That means issuing more debt, since the federal budget is in perpetual deficit.

That is exactly what has happened in the past 2½ years: Uncle Sam issued $7 trillion of new debt during the Covid pandemic, which took publicly held national debt to its present $24 trillion up from $17 trillion in February 2020.

… In principal amount, the national debt has exploded and the cost of debt service is escalating, too. The current $756 billion annual net interest expense on the $24 trillion of publicly held debt implies a required economic growth rate of more than 3% in a $25 trillion economy in order for the debt “not to matter.” The average forecast for economic growth in calendar year 2022 is less than 1%, and many economists expect negative growth—i.e., recession—in 2023.

Not only are rising interest rates driving up federal interest expense dramatically; inflation is propelling growth in government spending. Social Security benefits are adjusted based on the average of the consumer-price index reports for July, August and September each year. We have reports for two months and don’t need the third to know that benefits will increase next year to roughly $1.3 trillion from $1.2 trillion (or more than 8%).

Healthcare costs always exceed the rate of inflation, too. That guarantees double-digit growth next year in Medicare from about $710 billion in fiscal 2022 based on the first 11 months, and in the other government healthcare programs categorized as “health” in the Monthly Treasury Statement, which amounted to $915 billion in fiscal 2022. Assuming only 10% healthcare inflation, these two categories combined will grow by $163 billion.

Naturally, if we do slip—or plummet—into a serious recession, federal income-tax revenue will erode. Even before recession, the past nine months of declining stock and bond prices virtually assure an almost complete collapse in capital-gains-tax revenue come tax time next April. Loss of that category alone—which averages about 12% of federal individual income-tax revenue—will necessitate hundreds of billions in borrowing to replace lost revenue.

Inflation and interest rates are inflicting painful damage today. Yet seemingly without notice the national debt is working like a cancer sapping the nation’s long-term economic vitality.

Whether we reach the “doom loop,” or just become mired in stagflation, unchecked government spending and mounting national debt will drain all growth potential from the national economy sooner rather than later.

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America’s Powerhouse Solution:

The Leviticus 25 Plan will generate $583 billion federal budget surpluses for each of the first 5 years of activation (2023-2027), and completely pay for itself over the next 10-15 years.

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 – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America 2023

Economic Scoring links:

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 billion Federal Budget Surpluses (2023-2027), Part 1: Overview, Deficit Projection

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 2: Federal Income Tax and Means-Tested Welfare Recapture Benefits.

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 3: Medicaid/CHIP and Medicare Recapture Benefits

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 4: VA, TRICARE, FEHB, SSDI Recapture Benefits

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 5: Subtotals, Interest Expense Savings, Summary

Full Plan:Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (3958 downloads)  

Website:   https://Leviticus25Plan.org

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Preview 1:

The Leviticus 25 Plan provides a $90,000 credit extension, direct from the Federal Reserve, to every participating U.S. citizen:  $60,000 into a Family Account (FA) and $30,000 into a Medical Savings Account (MSA).

Example:  Qualifying family of four would receive $240,000 in their FA, and $120,000 in their MSA.

Primary goals:  Massive debt elimination at family level: mortgage debt, consumer debt, student loan debt.  Federal budget surpluses.

Eligibility:  U.S. Citizen.  Job history, credit history requirement (similar to traditional credit checks for bank loans).  Clean recent drug history.  Clean crime history.

Requirements:  Forego all federal and state tax refunds for 5-year period.

Forego selected means-tested welfare benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego all income security program benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego new federally-subsidized ‘Family Medical Leave’ benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego Child Tax Credit benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego enhanced federal rental forbearance/assistance – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego SSI and SSDI for minimum 5-year period.

New $6,000 deductible on primary care access to: Medicare, Medicaid, VA, TRICARE, FEHB – for minimum 5-year period.

The Plan assumes that the elite-wealthy will not participate, because their refunds are too valuable to give up over the requisite 5-year period.

The Plan also assumes that many who heavily depend on social welfare benefits will also choose not to participate, because the overriding value of those benefits, vs foregoing them, over the 5-year period.

M. Stanton Evans, Sep 11, 1960:

“That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;

That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;

That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;

That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty;

That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;

That the genius of the Constitution—the division of powers—is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;

That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;

That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both;

That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies;

That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties.”

The Nation’s Fiscal Health: Federal Action Critical to Pivot toward Fiscal Sustainability   

GAO-22-105376 Published: May 05, 2022. Publicly Released: May 05, 2022 – Excerpts:

The federal government faces an unsustainable fiscal future. If policies don’t change, debt will continue to grow faster than the economy. This year’s review of the nation’s fiscal health found:

• Large annual budget deficits drive debt growth, as the government borrows money to finance spending that exceeds revenue
• Medicare and Social Security costs drive spending increases, especially as the population continues to get older
• Interest costs are projected to grow and could increase even faster if interest rates rise more than expected

Difficult policy decisions are needed to address the growing debt and change the government’s fiscal path.

What GAO Found

The federal government faces an unsustainable fiscal future. At the end of fiscal year 2021, debt held by the public was about 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a 33 percent increase from fiscal year 2019. Projections from the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of the Treasury, the Congressional Budget Office, and GAO all show that current fiscal policy is unsustainable over the long term. Debt held by the public is projected to reach its historical high of 106 percent of GDP within 10 years and continue to grow at an increasing pace. This ratio could reach 217 percent of GDP by 2050, absent any change in fiscal policy.

Debt Held by the Public Projected to Grow Faster Than GDP

The underlying conditions driving this unsustainable fiscal outlook existed well before the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to pose serious challenges if not addressed.

Federal Budget Deficit in Fiscal Year 2021 was Second Largest in History

The fiscal year 2021 federal budget deficit of $2.8 trillion was the second largest in history, after the fiscal year 2020 deficit of $3.1 trillion. These historically large deficits were due primarily to economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic—which decreased revenues in fiscal year 2020—and the additional spending by the federal government in response to the pandemic. Federal debt held by the public grew by about $5.5 trillion during fiscal years 2020 and 2021, reaching $22.3 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2021.

Increasingly Large Deficits Drive Unsustainable Debt Levels

In GAO’s simulation, starting in 2024, debt held by the public grows faster than GDP in every year. In most years, debt held by the public grows more than twice as fast as the economy, in real terms. The growing debt is a consequence of borrowing to finance increasingly large annual budget deficits. The total budget deficit is composed of two parts:

• The primary deficit: the gap between non-interest (program) spending and revenue and
• Spending on net interest: primarily the cost to service the debt.

Primary Deficit and Total Budget Deficit, Actual and Projected

In GAO’s simulation, increasing primary deficits are driving spending and revenue trends.

• Spending: Medicare, other federal health care programs, and Social Security are requiring an increasingly large share of federal resources. Under GAO’s simulation, spending for both major federal health care programs and Social Security would account for 85 percent of projected revenue in 2050, up from 63 percent in 2019.
• Revenue: Average annual revenue as a share of GDP was lower over the last 20 years than in prior decades. From 2000 to 2021, revenue averaged 16.8 percent of GDP annually, compared to annual average of 17.9 percent of GDP between 1980 and 2000.

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Note – There is ‘no political will’ among either Washington Democrats or Washington Republicans to effect any meaningful changes to address the GAO’s dire fiscal forecast for the U.S..

Their non-action is both shameful and dangerous.

Main Street Republicans, however, do have a plan – one that re-targets Federal Reserve monetary policy to create enormous fiscal benefits and long-term financial viability for the United States.

This Plan will generate $583 billion budget surpluses, conservatively, each of the first five years of activation (2023-2027); reduce / eliminate America’s $3.2 trillion in state and local debt; and provided for a massive reduction in the $16.15 trillion of Household Debt carried by America’s families.

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 – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4174 downloads)

Republicans Should Stand for More Than Opposing Democrats

They need to develop specific policies and programs in time for the 2024 presidential election.

By Joseph Epstein

The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 30, 2022 – Excerpts:

“… Democrats seem always on the political offensive; with their general principles, the Republicans on the defensive, seeing it as their chief task to block costly Democratic bills and other attempts at radical change….

…What the Republicans had going for them in the midterms was opposition to inflation, the obvious madness (and sadness) of our open southern border, the crime openly rampant in big-city streets, the wobbly foreign policy of an American president who in this realm and others seems well over his head.

However worthy of attack these things are, they leave the Republicans in the respectable but limited position of loyal opposition. What, apart from this opposition, does the party stand for that American voters can get behind in the passionate way that wins elections?

The lack of positive policies or programs leaves Republicans open to the old argument that the party stands for little more than the defense of rich and the maintenance of the status quo. In this scheme—or, as we say nowadays, narrative—the Democrats stand for progress, they are the party of the people, holding the torch of social justice high, while the Republicans stand for regress, the continual enrichment of the 1%, a deep insensitivity to injustice and suffering.

If Republicans were to promote policies and programs formed from their principles, it would have the not-trivial benefit of putting give-and-take back at the heart of the two-party system. A politics that encouraged the parties to argue over rivaling ideas would invite the intelligent participation of a great number of Americans.

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What our Washington Republicans have not done is “promote policies and programs” that are forged from their defining principles and core beliefs, programs what will (1) Get the federal budget back under control, (2) Reduce government control over the daily affairs of citizens, (3) Formalize a long-term robust economic growth plan, and (4) Restore financial security for American families.

Main Street Republicans, the very hard-working, tax-paying, God-fearing U.S. citizens, who comprise the back-bone of America, have just such a formal plan.

The Leviticus 25 Plan will (1) Generate $583 billion budget surpluses, (2) Reduce government control over the daily affairs of citizens, (3) Reign in out-of-control entitlement spending, (4) Provide massive debt elimination and newfound financial security for millions of American families, (5) Revitalize a citizen-centered health care system, (6) Promote economic liberty and free market dynamics for the U.S. economy, (7) Provide long-term strength and stability for the U.S. Dollar and steer America clear of a freedom-robbing Fed-based Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4165 downloads)

The Biden administration has announced that it will “forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans, a move that will provide unprecedented relief for borrowers:..”  – The Wall Street Journal, Aug 24, 2022.

Continuing –  “The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that canceling $10,000 for borrowers earning up to $125,000 will cost about $300 billion. The Pell grant addition could increase this by as much as $270 billion. The four-month freeze on payments will cost $20 billion on top of the roughly $115 billion it already has.”

That’s a cool $590 billion.

“Worse than the cost is the moral hazard and awful precedent this sets. Those who will pay for this write-off are the tens of millions of Americans who didn’t go to college, or repaid their debt, or skimped and saved to pay for college, or chose lower-cost schools to avoid a debt trap. This is a college graduate bailout paid for by plumbers and FedEx drivers.”

Meanwhile, “The combined actions could render up to 20 million borrowers free of student debt, according to the White House.

“It’s hard to wrap your head around how life changing this is going to be for so many people. It is almost cosmic in scale,” said the Debt Collective, an activist group that has pushed for broad cancellation.”

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It is hard to overstate how important and beneficial this type of debt relief is for millions of recent college graduates, who are now dealing skyrocketing rents and higher food and fuel costs – and how it will be viewed, politically, by the nearly 20 million beneficiaries.

And what was the Republican response?  Did the Washington Republicans have a better plan for America?

Answer:  No.

“GOP lawmakers quickly criticized the idea, with the Republican National Committee calling the plan ‘Biden’s bailout for the wealthy.’”  –The Wall Street Journal, Aug 25, 2022.

Republicans in Washington, by the way, do not have any type of broadly-defined ‘Vision for Restoring the American Dream,’ and never have a superior alternative to offer the American people when Biden and the Washington Democrats push to expand big-government’s budget-blowing powers benefiting politically-malleable special interest groups.

What the Washington Republican response should have been:

“We Republicans offer to the American people a comprehensive economic plan that is far superior to the Biden Administration’s $10,000 college loan forgiveness plan.

Our plan will provided direct access to liquidity and a path to massive debt relief for all U.S. citizens – which includes millions of past college graduates who have worked hard and repaid their loans, and the millions of tax-paying Americans who did not go to college (but are now subsidizing Biden’s college loan forgiveness plan).

Our plan will not strap taxpayers with a $590 billion addition to the national debt.  Our plan will instead generate $583 billion budget surpluses each of the first five years of activation (2023-2027).

Our plan will not continue to make citizens ever more dependent on federal government programs. It will instead will allow citizens to become less dependent and less controlled by government.  It will rebuild the foundations of freedom in America.

Our plan will re-vitalize free market dynamics in America, lower inflation, usher in a grand new long-term economic growth cycle, and ‘raise all boats’ with enhanced financial security for all Americans.

Our plan:

The Leviticus 25 Plan provides a $90,000 credit extension, direct from the Federal Reserve, to every participating U.S. citizen:  $60,000 into a Family Account (FA) and $30,000 into a Medical Savings Account (MSA).

Example:  Qualifying family of four would receive $240,000 in their FA, and $120,000 in their MSA.

Primary goal:  Massive debt elimination at family level:  mortgage debt, consumer debt, student loan debt

Eligibility:  U.S. Citizen.  Job history, credit history requirement (similar to traditional credit checks for bank loans).  Clean recent drug history.  Clean crime history.

Requirements:  Forego all federal and state tax refunds for 5-year period.

Forego all means-tested welfare benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego all income security program benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego new federally-subsidized ‘Family Medical Leave’ benefits – for minimum 5 year period.

Forego Child Tax Credit benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego enhanced unemployment benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego enhanced rental forbearance/assistance – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego SSI and SSDI for minimum 5-year period.

New $6,000 deductible on primary care access to: Medicare, Medicaid, VA, TRICARE, FEHB – for minimum 5-year period.

The Plan assumes that the elite-wealthy will not participate, because their refunds are too valuable to give up over the requisite 5-year period.

The Plan also assumes that many who heavily depend on social welfare benefits will also choose not to participate, because the overriding value of those benefits, vs foregoing them, over the 5-year period.

The Leviticus 25 Plan grants the same direct access to liquidity, through a Fed-based Citizens Credit Facility, similar to the credit facilities that were created by the Fed to transfuse trillions of dollars in direct transfers and credit extensions to Wall Street’s major banks, credit agencies and insurers during the great financial crisis. 

The following facilities were created and activated by the Fed for this massive Wall Street bail out operation: Term Auction Facility (TAF), Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF), currency swap agreements with several foreign central banks,  Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (AMLF), Money Market Investor Funding Facility (MMIFF), and the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), and access to the Fed’s Discount Window.

Additional perspective:  SIGTARP, the oversight agency of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), in its July 2009 report, vetted by Treasury, noted that the U.S. Government’s “Total Potential Support Related to Crisis” (page 138) amounted to $23.7 trillion. While this figure represents a backstop commitment, not a measure of total potential loss, it is nonetheless an astounding degree of support, in the form of liquidity infusions, credit extensions and guarantees, various other forms of assistance for financial institutions and other business entities affected by the financial crisis.

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 – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4161 downloads)

A fresh Wall Street Journal review of IRS audits…

This is Your IRS at Work

Official audits show a record of incompetence. Democrats are still giving the tax agency an $80 billion raise.

By The Editorial Board | Aug. 19, 2022

The new Inflation Reduction Act has many damaging provisions, but for sheer government gall the $80 billion reward to the Internal Revenue Service stands out. The money will go to hire 87,000 new employees, doubling its current payroll. This is also doubling down on incompetence, as anyone can see in the official reports of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (Tigta).

We’ve read those reports for the last several years so you don’t have to, and the experience is a government version of finding yourself in a blighted neighborhood for the first time. You can’t believe it’s that bad. The trouble goes beyond the oft-cited failures like answering only 10% of taxpayer calls, or a backlog of 17 million unprocessed tax returns. The audits reveal an agency that can’t do its basic job well but will terrorize taxpayers whether deserving or not.

***

Consider the agency’s chronic mishandling of tax credits. By the IRS’s own admission, some $19 billion—or 28%—of earned-income tax credit payments in fiscal 2021 were “improper.” The amount hasn’t improved despite years of IRS promises to do better.

• A January Tigta audit found that an estimated 67,000 claims—totaling $15.6 billion—for the low-income housing tax credit from 2015 to 2019 “lacked or did not match supporting documentation due to potential reporting errors or noncompliance.”

• A May audit found that 26% ($1.9 billion) of its American opportunity tax credits for education expenses were improper in fiscal 2021, and 27% ($541 million) of its net premium tax credits (ObamaCare) were improper in fiscal 2019 (the most recent year it estimated). The same May audit said the IRS acknowledged that 13% ($5.2 billion) of its enhanced child tax credit payments were improper.

• How did it handle $1,200 stimulus checks, the sick and paid family leave credit, or the employee retention tax credit? Unknown, since the agency didn’t estimate failure rates—for which Tigta rapped its knuckles.

• A September 2021 audit found the IRS in 2020 issued 89,338 notices to taxpayers insisting that “balances were owed even though the taxes were not actually due.” Why? Because the feds had extended the filing deadline amid Covid but the IRS apparently didn’t notice.

• A February audit found the IRS department responsible for ensuring retirement-plan tax compliance suffered a 23% decline in the quality of its examinations from fiscal 2018 to fiscal 2020. In the past seven months, Tigta has issued searing reports on IRS mismanagement of everything from its partial-payment program for delinquent taxpayers, to its auditing of partnerships, to its struggle to handle internal employee misconduct.

• This ineptitude extends to programs Democrats insist will now raise revenue—those targeting higher earners. In 2010 Congress passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which was supposed to identify wealthy Americans using undisclosed foreign accounts. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation said this would raise some $9 billion in revenue by fiscal 2020. Yet an April Tigta audit noted that while the IRS has spent $574 million to implement the law, the agency has drummed up only $14 million in compliance revenue.

• A July 2021 audit related the failure of the IRS small-business/self-employed division’s strategy, which began in 2010 to examine more returns from “high-income individual taxpayers.” The IRS defines high earners as those with income greater than $200,000. Yet from fiscal 2015 to the end of fiscal 2017 (when the strategy was shut down), 73% of returns targeted by the strategy fell below $200,000.

Democrats say a turbocharged IRS won’t pursue taxpayers earning less than $400,000, but don’t believe it. Middle-income Americans are easier marks, as they are more likely to write a check than engage in years of costly litigation.

***

The Tigta site shows the IRS is good at one thing: punishing those who resist its demands. A March audit chastised the IRS for using lien foreclosure suits to confiscate “principal residences” from delinquent taxpayers, a process that does “not provide [taxpayers] the same legal protections as seizures.”

A March 2017 report related the agency’s crackdown on businesses flagged as potentially evading a law that requires financial institutions to report currency transactions exceeding $10,000. The IRS took to seizing property from its targets before even conducting interviews. Tigta reports that even when interviews were conducted, the IRS failed to advise the accused of their rights or the purpose of the interview, and failed to consider “realistic defenses or explanations.” Tigta found that “most” of those targeted (owners of gas stations, jewelry stores, scrap-metal dealers, restaurants) had not committed crimes, though many were never able to regain their property.

This is the IRS that Democrats are now arming with more money and manpower to unleash on Americans. The $80 billion is a demonstration of their priorities, and further proof of the rule that failure in government is invariably rewarded with a bigger budget.

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Republicans in Washington, who, by the way, do not have any type of broadly-defined ‘Vision for Restoring the American Dream,’ and never seem to have a superior alternative to offer the American people when Washington Democrats push to expand big-government’s power to expropriate wealth and limit freedoms for working-class Americans – should sit up and take notice….

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a powerful, and manifestly superior, plan to expanding IRS powers – and defining a bright new vision for America.

All U.S. citizens participating in The Leviticus 25 Plan will forego their tax refunds for the initial five year activation period (2023-2027).

Benefits – Federal Income Tax Recapture
The scoring model assumes that 80% of U.S. citizens will participate in The Plan.
Participants must give up their tax refunds through the Plan’s recapture provisions for the 5-year target period (2023-2027).

According to 2021 IRS Filing season statistics, through Dec 3, 2021: 129,841,000 total refunds were paid out for a total of $365.499 billion. The estimated refund total
for the full year, through December 31st: $365.5 billion.

The Leviticus 25 Plan would reduce the number of refunds each year (2023-2027) by 80%, effectively dropping the gross number of refunds in need of processing, reviewing, and potentially auditing, from approximately 130,000,000 down to about 26,000,000.

The IRS would NOT need to hire the additional thousands of employees, and they would NOT be put in the bind of having to pay $3.3 billion in interest payments on unprocessed refunds.

And the IRS would NOT need “$45.6 billion for “enforcement,” including “litigation,” “criminal investigations,” “investigative technology,” “digital asset monitoring” and a new fleet of tax-collector cars.“

The Leviticus 25 Plan, by virtue of its Federal Income Tax Recapture provisions, will increase U.S. Treasury Department net tax collection revenue by $1.592 trillion over a 5-year period – all without spending one additional dollar on IRS collection efforts.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – Federal Income Tax Recapture

The scoring model assumes that 80% of U.S. citizens will participate in The Leviticus 25 Plan.

Participants must give up their tax refunds through the Plan’s recapture provisions for the 5-year target period (2023-2027).

According to 2021 IRS Filing season statistics, through Dec 3, 2021: 129,841,000 total refunds were paid out for a total of $365.499 billion.  The estimated refund total for the full year, through December 31^st:  $365.5 billion.

Refund totals have increased by ~$44 billion over the past five years, from $323.9 billion (2017) to a current (estimated) $365.5 billion (2021), representing an average increase of $8.32 billion / year. 

A conservative estimated average of $8 billion per year (2023-2027) will be used for this recapture calculation.

2021: $365.5 billion

2022: $374 billion

2023: $382 billion

2024: $390 billion

2025: $398 billion

2026: $406 billion

2027: $414 billion

Total: $1.990 trillion

Total recapture X 80%:  $1.990 trillion X .8 = $1.592 trillion

Total recapture per annum (2023-2027): $1.592 trillion / 5 = $318.4 billion

Source: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/filing-season-statistics-for-week-ending-december-3-2021 

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 – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. cirizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4158 downloads)