Time To Pay the Piper

 Popular Economics Weekly

 “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. [State of the Union Address January 11 1962]” President John F Kennedy

Wikipedia

Two of our largest domestic economies are heeding President Kennedy’s words, “when the sun is shining”; it’s time to begin paying our national debt during this record-breaking stock market run that is currently benefiting the wealthiest Americans.

We are drowning in a federal debt that is endangering our good faith and credit while crowding out domestic spending on the public services that make life more bearable for ordinary Americans. We have a federal debt that is now 120% of the annual output of the U.S. economy (Gross Domestic Product).

New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and California Governor Gavin Newsom have announced that it’s possible to balance a budget. Maybe that’s something Republicans should also heed if they want to remain relevant to America’s future by offering more than tax cuts and bloated military budgets.

New York City is the largest U.S. city with an 8.5 million population, and the State of California has the fourth largest economy in the world behind the U.S., China and Japan.

Mayor Mamdani announced the $124.7 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Executive Budget, putting New York City on firm financial footing while protecting the services working people rely on. “Through strong fiscal management, Mayor Mamdani balanced the budget through a combination of aggressive savings, new tax revenue, partnership with Albany and critical new investments.”

California’s 2026-27 budget, as revised by Governor Gavin Newsom on May 14, 2026, “projects no deficit for that year and the next budget year (2027-28), with a structural deficit eliminated through July 2028.”

It’s a sign that Americans in Democratic states at least want to move on from the trickle-down economic policies that Republicans have practiced since 1980, resulting in five recessions including the Great Recession on their watch.

It has perpetrated the greatest income and wealth inequality of all—red states depriving their own citizens of a livable minimum wage and social services that make their lives bearable, with no minimum wage higher than the national minimum wage of $7.25 per hour (portrayed in the Wikipedia map), or state taxes to pay their bills and provide adequate health care.

That’s a reason most Republican-led, so-called red states, have fallen far behind in growth compared to Democrat-led blue states –many with surplus tax revenues that go to many of the red states in the form of benefit payments to balance their budgets.

California, for instance, has the largest tax ‘imbalance’ in the nation. Varying estimates show Californians pay between $83billion and $275billion more to the IRS than the federal government returns to the state in the form of Social Security, healthcare, military contracts, and disaster aid.

Whereas red states like Kentucky require $Billions from the federal coffers to meet their budget needs. For instance, 10 red states have no Medicaid health insurance for their low-income residents.

The results show the glaring damage the minimal, ‘bare bones’ red state budgets wreak on the health and safety of their citizens. Red states exhibit higher premature mortality rates and higher incidences of death from major internal causes, such as heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Blue state citizens on average live longer.

NIH research shows a clear partisan health divide in the United States, with "blue" (Democratic-leaning) states consistently outperforming "red" (Republican-leaning) states across major public health metrics, including life expectancy, infant mortality, and preventable chronic illnesses.

The New York City and California examples show that state and federal governments know how to balance a budget that benefits all Americans, not just the wealthiest. The Clinton Administration even created four consecutive years of budget surpluses in the 1990s that paid down the federal debt.

A consensus is building that our national debt must be dealt with. Balancing budgets are the responsible way to deal with it, not the trickle-down economic policies that have created the monstrous debt from the many Republican tax cuts that have deprived red states’ citizens of a decent standard of living.

Harlan Green © 2026

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

A Better Unemployment Report?

 Financial FAQs

“Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 130,000 in January, and the unemployment rate changed little at 4.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, social assistance, and construction, while federal government and financial activities lost jobs.” BLS

FREDpayrolls

The Whitehouse is touting the January jump in nonfarm payrolls, which it claims is evidence Trump’s economic policies are beginning to work. But that ain’t so by a long shot.

It is not a sign of successful policies when this was the first jump from close to zero new hires in a year per the FRED graph of new payroll jobs.

Annual revisions to last year’s payrolls showed just 181,000 new jobs were created in 2025, down from an earlier estimate of 584,000. That means the monthly average job growth in 2025 was only 15,000.

Whereas the Biden economy added 237,000 jobs in December 2024 alone and 1.495 million in all of 2024. So whose economic policies worked better?

The Biden administration had passed almost $5 trillion in new bipartisan legislation that was modernizing the American economy for the first time in 70 years, passing the Infrastructure, Inflation Reduction and CHIPS Acts as well as increasing electric vehicle puirchase incentives,.

And they had even brought down inflation from the 9 percent high incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic to 3 percent where it has been ever since. But it seems enough Americans believed Trump’s lie that he could bring down inflation on “Day one” when it had already happened.

From Trump’s return to power, however, rather than continue to carry out the bipartisan agreements that would prepare our economy for the next century, his obsession to concentrate as much power unto himself and his Billionaire supporters has led him to destroy as much of those bipartisan agreements as possible that would grow the American economy into the next century.

The result is his return to policies of the last century’s Gilded Age of Robber Barons and corruption has been the opposite of what was promised—rising prices, falling employment and increased pollution.

The higher tariffs are the main reason there was such a loss of jobs last year. Employers couldn’t predict the cost of their imported goods because of Trump’s petty spites and mostly illegal executive actions, so they didn’t expand their businesses and hire additional employees.

And health care is now the main sector hiring new workers, not only because of America’s aging population but because Trump’s policies are making Americans sicker. There have been so many cuts to our healthcare grants and loss of medical experts in the CDC and elsewhere that even measles outbreaks are becoming a problem.

As has been the case for more than a year, health care accounted for more than half of job gains in January, adding 82,000 positions. Construction gained 33,000 jobs, but most other sectors were flat, and the federal government shed another 35,000 positions.

But lastly will be the toll that Trump’s indiscriminate roundup of undocumented immigrants will do to our food supply. I mentioned recently that according to a Michigan State study cited by The Idaho Capital Sun, more than half of surveyed farmers said in 2021 that they were experiencing some sort of worker shortage, It found that when domestic farm employment declines by 10%, food prices of labor-intensive crops increase by around 3%

The number of private payroll jobs will continue to shrink and who really believes that AI, or Chat GDP, or robots can replace real workers anytime in the near future?

Harlan Green © 2026

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Why Are Americans So Unhealthy?

 Financial FAQs

“Americans have just avoided another health care disaster in voting down the Senate’s ‘skinny’ Obamacare Repeal and Replace bill. Even though maintaining most of the taxes to pay for the Medicaid portion, it would have made insurance coverage prohibitively expensive for those older and sicker users with the removal of the private and employer mandate requirements that would cause younger and healthier people to leave the insurance markets.” Harlan Green Huffington Post

Graph: Last Tech Age

I wrote this in 2017 when Republicans had almost succeeded in repealing Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) during President Trump’s first term.

And they are at it again by refusing to negotiate their continuing resolution (CR) with Democrats that has caused the latest government shutdown. The Democrats have been asking to keep the Obamacare subsidies in the CR that help to finance the Obamacare premiums for older and sicker folks. It’s 2017 all over again.

Republicans couldn’t repeal Obamacare then but they are about to succeed this time by allowing the Obamacare subsidies that keep premiums affordable for the 30 million users to lapse at the end of this year.

\Americans already have the worst health outcomes in the developed world, precisely because America is the only developed country—in fact, even of undeveloped countries—that doesn’t have universal coverage.

The result is one of the highest birth death rates, as well as diabetes, heart and other infectious disease rates—which are diseases usually associated with poorer, undeveloped countries and regions.

Why have Republicans been able to prevent a universal healthcare system that insures Americans that almost every other country in the world provides for their citizens?

I believe a major reason is because the U.S. has the highest income inequality in the developed world, as measured by the Gini Inequality Index that is accepted by economists. The U.S. is in 34th place of the 149 countries as ranked by the CIA’s World Factbook; with a Gini inequality index (41.8) like Bolivia and Djibouti. Whereas Denmark (29.3) and the European countries are at the top of equality rankings. The higher the index, the greater the gap between wealthy and poorer citizens of a country’s population.

Republicans have made more than 30 attempts to repeal President Obama signature achievement that required private health insurers to cover clients with existing illnesses for the first time.

A 2016 Commonwealth Club study listed Obamacare’s benefits. “…evidence indicates that the ACA has likely acted as an economic stimulus, in part by freeing up private and public resources for investment in jobs and production capacity. Moreover, the law’s payment and other cost-related reforms appear to have contributed to the marked slowdown in health spending growth seen in recent years.” Health care spending growth per person—both public and private—has slowed for five years.

· A number of ACA reforms, particularly related to Medicare, have likely contributed to the slowdown in health care spending growth by tightening provider payment rates and introducing incentives to reduce excess costs.

· Faster-than-expected economic growth and slower-than-expected health care spending have led to multiple downward revisions of the federal deficit and projected deficits.

· These trends have also been a boon to state and local government budgets, as job growth has improved state tax revenues while cost growth in health care programs has slowed. At the same time, expanding insurance to millions of poeople who were previously uninsured has supported local health systems and enhanced families’ ability to pay for necessities, including health care.

The benefits of Obamacare have become blindingly obvious since it was enacted in 2014, which for the first time required private health insurers to cover people with existing illnesses. So why have Republicans continued to oppose it?

Combined with RFK, Jr.’s cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, Americans’ health outcomes will get even worse, making working Americans less productive.

Why shouldn’t affordable healthcare be a right for the poorest, as well as the wealthiest? Maybe even Republicans might begin to ask why?

Harlan Green © 2025

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Trump, the Lucky Loser

 Answering Kennedy’s Call

“Born to a rich father who made him the beneficiary of his own highly lucrative investments, Trump received the equivalent of more than $500 million today via means that required no business expertise whatsoever.”

Random House

In just Donald Trump’s first week in office, it’s becoming obvious that the illusions he lives under will be no different than during his first term as president. He is counting on the American electorate to not believe what they are seeing.

For instance:

Climate change—"drill baby drill” for more fossil fuels when we are experiencing the worst climate disasters in history due to global warming—e.g., horrific wildfires, tornadoes and hurricanes.

Healthcare—Leaving WHOrg that monitors worldwide pandemics, and censoring the CDC and other government healthcare watchdogs’ research while releasing their results only after they have been vetted by his political appointees.

Military preparedness—now allowing military service members not to be vaccinated for COVID-19 and reinstating service members with full pay who were discharged for refusing vaccines.

Immigration—Saying he will deport millions of undocumented immigrants, when it will reduce badly needed workers in low-paying jobs that American citizens aren’t taking.

Tariffs—Asserting he would raise tariffs as high as 50 percent on nations with huge trade imbalances viz the U.S., when economists are saying it will be inflationary, and in Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman’s words, “make us poorer.”

Public education—Wants to abolish Department of Education that supports the 80 percent of students in public schools.

Tax cuts—Just extending his first term tax cut beyond 2025 when it is scheduled to expire and could add as much as $5trillion to the already bloated federal budget deficit, which could cause investors to lose faith in the US Dollar.

President Trump’s real intentions are already becoming clear in his second presidential term in office. He and his Oligarchs want to steal the US Government blind, as I said last week, by keeping Americans and the media as blind as possible to what he intends.

Why does Trump continue policies that will only harm more Americans while enriching himself and his oligarch supporters?

This was highlighted in Pulitzer Prize-winners Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig’s just released book, Lucky Loser that raises a bigger question in a Washington Post review by Bethany McLean about the ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ ethos of modern America. In a world that conflates the ‘trappings of wealth with expertise and ability,’ where ‘fame, detached from any other marketable talent or skill,’ is ‘a highly compensated vocation,’ does it even matter if you never actually make it?”

The outright distrust of truth is a propaganda tool used by autocrats that public media has normalized. This probably tells us best why he was able to take over the Republican Party that has drifted so far from conservative values and was once the environmental party when Republican President Nixon signed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency into law in 1970.

So will he be more successful in passing his promises in his second term? We should ignore some of his most nonsensical executive orders, such as attempting to amend the 14^th Amendment by decree that guarantees citizenship for anyone born in the U.S. 50 states and territories, which he knows can’t be done by decree or executive order.

But the furor that it and the immediate release of 1500 January 6 Capital attackers from prison, mostly convicted felons, will generate enough attention that it will cloak his real intention; reduce or eliminate as many government programs as possible that make life better for ordinary Americans, such as Medicaid, in order to fund more tax cuts.

He has already rescinded the Biden executive order to cap Medicaid spending on drugs that would save Medicaid $billions in costs.

“In reversing the executive order Biden signed in 2022, Trump halted an effort to cap the copayment for generic medications at $2 for Medicare beneficiaries, along with another program that would see Medicare pay less for drugs that receive accelerated approval from the Food and Drug Administration,” according to MarketWatch’s Jessica Hall.

And there is also the question of what Trump will do with regard to the prescription-drug provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, which would be substantially more consequential. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, Medicare can negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs with the aim of making drugs more affordable for older adults and people with disabilities.

He continues to throw bombs at the public media by announcing he will seek retribution from those prosecutors that sought his indictment for the various crimes he committed during his first term, such as January 6, withholding Top Secret documents at Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere, while hoping to erase the Grand Jury indictments in some way.

And he will eventually have to settle the $500 million in awards won by women he defamed. So it’s no wonder that he will use his immense power that is meant to protect U.S. citizens to protect himself instead, at their expense?

Harlan Green © 2025

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

No Art of the Deal--Part II

 Answering Kennedy’s Call

“It’s 100 days into the Trump Presidency and looking more and more like President Trump is no more effective at running the country than his business interests. His book, The Art of the Deal was meant to tout his negotiating skills, but the results were never very successful.”

Huffington Post

I wrote this piece for Huffington Post in 2017, after President Trump’s first 100 days as president.

“And neither are his legislative efforts; with no repeal of Obamacare, or tax reform, an immigration ban, new trade policy, and sanctuary city victories in the offing anytime soon because of poorly thought out strategies. Instead, he threatens judges, sanctuary cities, Congress, and even other countries when they don’t support his various executive orders,” I said then.

President Trump’s real intentions are becoming clear on just his second day of his second term in office. He and his Oligarchs want to steal the US Government blind, as the saying goes, by keeping Americans and the media as blind as possible to what he intends.

Will he be more successful in passing his promises in his second term? We should ignore some of his most nonsensical executive orders, such as attempting to amend the 14^th Amendment by decree that guarantees citizenship for anyone born in the U.S. 50 states and territories, which he knows can’t be done by decree or executive order.

But the furor that it and the immediate release of 1500 January 6 Capital attackers from prison, mostly convicted felons, will generate enough attention that it will cloak his real intention; reduce or eliminate as many government programs as possible that make life better for ordinary Americans, such as Medicaid, in order to fund more tax cuts.

He has already rescinded the Biden executive order to cap Medicaid spending on drugs that would save Medicaid $billions in costs.

“In reversing the executive order Biden signed in 2022, Trump halted an effort to cap the copayment for generic medications at $2 for Medicare beneficiaries, along with another program that would see Medicare pay less for drugs that receive accelerated approval from the Food and Drug Administration,” according to MarketWatch’s Jessica Hall.

And there is also the question of what Trump will do with regard to the prescription-drug provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, which would be substantially more consequential. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, Medicare can negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs with the aim of making drugs more affordable for older adults and people with disabilities.

We can’t blame it just on Trump. Republicans have been trying to deprive Americans of affordable healthcare managed by the government for years. The efforts became serious in the more than 30 unsuccessful attempts to repeal Obamacare since it was passed during President Obama’s first two years in office. It became an obsession in Trump’s first term that I wrote about in Huffington Post at the time.

“What if conservatives succeeded in repealing Obamacare (ACA)? “Republicans' Obamacare repeal bill would leave 17 million more people uninsured next year, and 32 million more in 2026, the Congressional Budget Office said in an estimate Wednesday. It also said premiums would double by 2026. …By 2026, three quarters of the population would live in areas with no insurers participating in the non-group market, due to upward pressure on premiums and downward pressure on enrollment, the report found.”

The accrued savings in health care spending relative to their projected growth prior to the ACA are substantial: Medicare alone is now projected to spend $1 trillion less between 2010 and 2020.

The lobbies behind the Obamacare repeal effort have not succeeded in making more Americans ill. I don’t even want to imagine what the results would be if he and Republicas succeed in downsizing Medicaid benefits as well.

Harlan Green © 2025

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Make Healthcare More Equal!

 Answering Kennedy’s Call

Healthcare is back in the news, and Republicans still don’t get its importance as an election issue in its continuing efforts to repeal Obamacare, the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), enacted that I wrote about in 2017 in the Huffington Post.

The Republican Party is now Trump’s party, and nothing has changed. Trump’s failed effort in 2017 to repeal the health-care law was blasted at the time over the prospect of millions of Americans losing their health insurance. Senator John McCain killed Republican’s last attempt in 2017 when I first wrote about it.

“Americans have just avoided another health care disaster in voting down the Senate’s ‘skinny’ Obamacare Repeal and Replace bill,” I said then. “Even though maintaining most of the taxes to pay for the Medicaid portion, it would have made insurance coverage prohibitively expensive for those older and sicker users with the removal of the private and employer mandate requirements that would cause younger and healthier people to leave the insurance markets.”

“Republicans' Obamacare repeal bill would leave 17 million more people uninsured next year, and 32 million more in 2026, the Congressional Budget Office said in a 2017 estimate. Premiums would double by 2026…By 2026, three quarters of the population would live in areas with no insurers participating in the non-group market, due to upward pressure on premiums and downward pressure on enrollment, the report found.”

This is even “Although overshadowed in the national political discourse by discussions about the importance of the economy, immigration, or abortion, voters have expressed that health care continues to be one of their highest priorities,” said a recent Brookings commentary.

“In fact, a May 2024 poll by Pew found that health care was the third-highest issue priority for voters, garnering a robust 57% from respondents”, continued Brookings.

Yet former President Donald Trump on the 2024 campaign trail said once again that he is “seriously looking at alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act if he returns to the White House, reports the NYTimes, “reigniting his longstanding crusade against former President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law.”

Then why do Republicans continue to attack Obamacare when it is so popular? It’s total self-interest, the hubris of the entitled, now in stark relief. Republicans have opposed almost any government-run social welfare legislation. Remember Bush II’s attempts to privatize social security, which would have raised its cost astronomically and given his Wall Street backers a multi-billion-dollar windfall?

This first became evident in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 original campaign slogan, “government is the problem”, which was a ploy to divert at least $1 trillion from wage earners to the holders of capital by busting the labor unions and cutting taxes for the wealthiest. It was the start of a new Gilded Age that created great wealth for the top 10 percent and the great inequality we have today.

America now has the worst income inequality in the developed world, according to the CIA World Factbook. And studies have shown that those countries with the most inequality also rank lowest in healthcare benefits.

The U.S. was in 106th place of the 149 countries in income inequality as ranked by the CIA’s World Factbook; with a Gini inequality index of developing countries like Peru and Cameroon in 2017. Whereas Finland and the Scandinavian countries are at the top of equality rankings, Germany and France are 12th and 20th, respectively, as I’ve highlighted in past columns. The higher the index, the greater the gap between wealthy and poorer citizens of a country’s population.

Another June 2024 Hart Research And Protect Our Care Poll cited by Protect Our Care, a social welfare nonprofit, found that over 60 percent of voters view Obamacare favorably.

Its many features include pre-existing condition coverage and no-cost preventive care, as well as allowing young adults on parents’ insurance. There is also broad support (82% favor, 47% strongly favor) for permanently lowering the cost of premiums for people who buy insurance through the ACA.

ProtectOurHealth.org

A recent NY Times article reported that more than 45 million people are enrolled in Affordable Care Act-related coverage, according to a recent report from the Department of Health and Human Services. A record number of people — more than 20 million — have signed up for plans on the act’s marketplaces this year, according to the Biden administration.”

What would happen if Republicans return Donald Trump to power? Americans already have the worst health outcomes in the developed world, precisely because America is the only developed country—in fact, even of undeveloped countries—that doesn’t have universal coverage.

The result is one of the highest birth death rates, as well as diabetes, heart and other infectious disease rates—which are diseases usually associated with poorer, undeveloped countries and regions.

On the other hand, a 2016 Commonwealth Club study lists Obamacare’s benefits:

“…evidence indicates that the ACA has likely acted as an economic stimulus, in part by freeing up private and public resources for investment in jobs and production capacity. Moreover, the law’s payment and other cost-related reforms appear to have contributed to the marked slowdown in health spending growth seen in recent years.”

The accrued savings in health care spending relative to their projected growth prior to the ACA are substantial: Medicare alone is now projected to spend $1 trillion less between 2010 and 2020.

The lobbies behind the Obamacare repeal effort have succeeded in making more Americans ill. I don’t even want to imagine what percentage of the 32 million would ultimately lose their coverage, if Trump keeps his promise to repeal Obamacare.

Senator McCain said back then that now is the time for Republicans and Democrats to work together in “regular order” to craft something better, maybe a universal healthcare bill that insures all Americans?

That would truly make Americans healthier.

Harlan Green © 2024

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Why are Americans So Unhealthy?

Financial FAQs

Americans have just avoided a health care disaster in voting down the Senate’s ‘skinny’ Obamacare Repeal and Replace bill. Even though maintaining most of the taxes to pay for the Medicaid portion, it would have made insurance coverage prohibitively expensive for those older and sicker users with the removal of the private and employer mandate requirements that would cause younger and healthier people to leave the insurance markets.

This is really the latest precipice that’s been averted. Americans already have the worst health outcomes in the developed world, precisely because America is the only developed country—in fact, of most of the rest of the undeveloped world—that doesn’t have universal coverage.

The result is one of the highest birth death rates, as well as heart, diabetes, and infectious disease rates—which are diseases usually associated with poorer, undeveloped countries and regions.

Why has this happened in the America? Because Americans have the worst income inequality in the developed world, according to the CIA World Factbook. And studies have shown that those countries with the greatest inequality also rank lowest in healthcare benefits.

Graph: Last Tech Age

The U.S. ranks 106^th of the 149 countries in income inequality as ranked by the CIA’s World Factbook; with a Gini inequality index of developing countries like Peru and Cameroon. Whereas Finland and the Scandinavian countries are at the top of equality rankings, as I’ve highlighted in past columns. The higher the index in the graph, the greater the gap between wealthy and poorer citizens of a country’s population.

This is while congress has even been attempting to take away Medicaid benefits for the poor, elderly and infirmed? It doesn’t compute. Just 3 Senators—Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and John McCain—were courageous enough to stand up to the conservative lobbies that would only worsen healthcare outcomes.

What if conservatives had succeeded in repealing Obamacare? “Republicans' Obamacare repeal bill would leave 17 million more people uninsured next year, and 32 million more in 2026, the Congressional Budget Office said in an estimate Wednesday. It also said premiums would double by 2026. …By 2026, three quarters of the population would live in areas with no insurers participating in the non-group market, due to upward pressure on premiums and downward pressure on enrollment, the report found.”

On the other hand, a 2016 Commonwealth Club study lists Obamacare’s many benefits. “…evidence indicates that the ACA has likely acted as an economic stimulus, in part by freeing up private and public resources for investment in jobs and production capacity. Moreover, the law’s payment and other cost-related reforms appear to have contributed to the marked slowdown in health spending growth seen in recent years.”

Some of those benefits are:

· Health care spending growth per person—both public and private—has slowed for five years.
 
· A number of ACA reforms, particularly related to Medicare, have likely contributed to the slowdown in health care spending growth by tightening provider payment rates and introducing incentives to reduce excess costs. 

· Faster-than-expected economic growth and slower-than-expected health care spending have led to multiple downward revisions of the federal deficit and projected deficits.

· These trends have also been a boon to state and local government budgets, as job growth has improved state tax revenues while cost growth in health care programs has slowed. At the same time, expanding insurance to millions of people who were previously uninsured has supported local health systems and enhanced families’ ability to pay for necessities, including health care.

· The accrued savings in health care spending relative to their projected growth prior to the ACA are substantial: Medicare alone is now projected to spend $1 trillion less between 2010 and 2020.

We can thank Senators Merkowski, Collins, and McCain that the so-called ‘freedom’ lobbies behind the Obamacare repeal efforts have not succeeded in making more Americans ill. I don’t even want to imagine the increased death totals due to lack of care of the 32 million aged and infirm that could ultimately lose their coverage.

So now is the time, in Senator McCain’s words, for Republicans and Democrats to work together in “regular order” to craft a truly bipartisan healthcare bill that could actually improve the health of Americans.

Harlan Green © 2017

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

TrumpCare--The Un-American Health Care Act

Popular Economics Weekly

It’s incredible. Why have House Republicans just voted for a health care bill that only does one thing in the words of MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, co-designer of the Massachusetts single-pay healthcare program and Obamacare?

On Lawrence O’Donnell’s Last Word he states that it gives the wealthiest what could be the single largest tax cut in history—almost $1 billion for those earning $200,000 plus per year—but cuts benefits to everyone else.

And this is when 23 percent of Americans have pre-existing medical conditions. The answer in the words of Paul Krugman has to be pure greed. Tax cuts are more important than protecting Americans from loss of coverage due to pre-existing conditions and soaring premium for everyone but the youngest and healthiest among US.

It was also an attempt to make the President look good, regardless of his broken promises that Obamacare benefits wouldn’t be reduced. Trump doesn’t care who loses, in other words, so long as he doesn’t look like a ‘loser’.

But what does it do for the white blue collar male Trump supporters who have suffered most from their loss of jobs, and whose mortality rate due to drugs and suicides is double that of other developed countries that lived through the same Great Recession?

Graph: CBO

The CBO graph pictures the suffering of 45-54 year-old white working class males in our post-industrial age. The rising red line is USA males, the falling lines are white males in other developed countries with Sweden having the lowest mortality rate “for all causes”. Even US Hispanics (blue line) had a falling mortality rate.

The House wouldn’t wait for the Congressional Budget Office latest ‘scoring’ of the costs of the bill, which confirms that House Republicans weren’t even concerned about its effects on federal and state budgets, much less on how many would lose their coverage, if taken off Obamacare.

The Congressional Budget Office projections on earlier House attempts to repeal projected that the revised GOP bill would realize $150 billion in reduced federal spending through 2026, which is less than half of the $337 billion in deficit reductions that the CBO had estimated for the bill's first version, said a CNBC summary of the report.

“But the newer version, like the first, is expected to lead to 14 million fewer people having health insurance in 2018, and 24 million fewer insured Americans by 2026 than would be covered if Obamacare remained as law in its current form. And an estimated total of 52 million people nationally would lack health coverage by 2026 if the revised bill becomes law, according to the CBO's projection. However, if Obamacare remained in effect, 28 million Americans would not have insurance by that year, according to the CBO.”

It cuts almost all Obamacare benefits, including to childcare, Medicare and Medicaid; even employers’ health care plans by turning over implementation to individual states. This is basically returning healthcare to the broken system it was before Obamacare that made US the unhealthiest developed country.

There were 20 mostly moderate Republicans that didn’t vote for the bill. The defectors were primarily centrists who had trepidations about voting for the bill after the addition of an amendment to let states apply for waivers from certain Obamacare provisions that prevent insurers from charging sick people higher premiums and mandate which services insurance plans must cover, said the Washington Post.

What are the effects of 24 million losing their health insurance? The New York Times Charles Blow cites a 2009 study conducted by the Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance: “nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance,” and “uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts.”

Republican House members seem to have no idea that President Trump is leading their re-election chances over a cliff—just so he won’t look like the loser he really is.

Harlan Green © 2017

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Service Sector Economy Booming

Financial FAQs

There was a huge jump in the U.S. service sector economy, our largest sector, some 67 percent of all U.S. economic activity. This is why we keep growing while most other developed and emerging economies aren’t.

"The Institute of Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index registered 55.7 percent in April, 1.2 percentage points higher than the March reading of 54.5 percent. This represents continued growth in the non-manufacturing sector at a slightly faster rate. The Non-Manufacturing Business Activity Index decreased to 58.8 percent, 1 percentage point lower than the March reading of 59.8 percent, reflecting growth for the 81st consecutive month, at a slower rate in April.”

Even more importantly, the New Orders Index registered 59.9 percent, 3.2 percentage points higher than the reading of 56.7 percent in March, said the ISM press release. The Employment Index increased 2.7 percentage points to 53 percent from the March reading of 50.3 percent and indicates growth for the second consecutive month.

Graph: Calculated Risk

The service sector is booming because it includes most consumer-based services, such as Wholesale Trade; Health Care & Social Assistance; Utilities; Finance & Insurance; Real Estate, Rental & Leasing; Construction; Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting; Public Administration; Professional, Scientific & Technical Services; and Retail Trade. The four industries reporting contraction in April are: Other Services; Mining; Transportation & Warehousing; and Educational Services.

So they are all the businesses that cater to consumers. In fact, the index is back to the highs of pre-recession 2005-2006. Much this is due to the rising consumer demand for goods and services as we approach full employment.

Even the Prices Index increased 4.3 percentage points from the March reading of 49.1 percent to 53.4 percent, indicating prices increased in April for the first time in three months and counteracting the recent deflationary trend that comes mostly from falling commodity and energy prices. According to the NMI®, 13 non-manufacturing industries reported growth in April. The majority of the respondents’ comments reflect optimism about the business climate and the direction of the economy.

What other factors favor higher growth this year, in spite of the initial estimate of 0.5 percent GDP growth in Q1? Even the manufacturing sector is showing better growth this spring. April's 50.8 (i.e., more than 50 percent of manufacturing supply managers surveyed means growth) for the ISM manufacturing index may be moderately below expectations for 51.5 but details in the report are positive,” says Econoday. “New orders did slow by 2.5 points but the level at 55.8 still points to a very solid rate of growth.

New export orders, offering positive evidence on the effects of the lower dollar, are also positive, unchanged at 52.5 which isn't dramatically above breakeven 50 but is still very solid for this reading and the best since December 2014. Backlog orders are still rising, though just barely at 50.5, but this along with March's 51.0 are the best two months for this reading also since December 2014.

So, continued growth in both sectors of the economy—with the service sector particularly strong—is reason for optimism that we can yet achieve 3 percent GDP growth this year.

Harlan Green © 2016

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Gun Violence Has Too Many Causes

Popular Economics Weekly

The tragic Newtown, Connecticut elementary school mass shooting is just the latest in a string of mass shootings that have contributed to more than 1 million dead by guns over the past 3 decades in the U.S.—an average of almost 32,000 per year.
This is when no other country in the developed world has had more than 400 documented gun killings in a year, outside of wartime. The problem in understanding the causes of such mass shootings may be that much gun violence has many causes that make it difficult if not impossible to understand in isolation.
But not if we look at the culture of violence that has made U.S. the most violent nation on earth. In fact, gun violence, as violence in general, has too many causes. Studies bear out that record income inequality, a poor social safety net and lax, almost nonexistent gun control laws all contribute to the U.S. record as the most gun violent culture in the world.
The Trayvon Martin killing illustrated this culture with the Stand Your Ground Laws being enacted in several states. And thereby we are beginning to see where the National Rifle Association, backed by some elements of Big Business, is leading this country—into a greater lawlessness, at the very least. For the Stand Your Ground Law enshrines the gangster code—shoot first and ask questions later.
As Paul Krugman said in a March New York Times Op-ed after the Trayvon Martin killing:

“Specifically, language virtually identical to Florida’s law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed organization that has managed to keep a low profile even as it exerts vast influence (only recently, thanks to yeoman work by the Center for Media and Democracy, has a clear picture of ALEC’s activities emerged). And if there is any silver lining to Trayvon Martin’s killing, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what ALEC is doing to our society — and our democracy.”

Krugman was exposing the links between corporations and the NRA that continues to push for guns to be worn by everyone everywhere, with or without background checks or even licenses.
Why the push by the NRA, and Big Business for more guns, as I said back in April? The reason most gun advocates and the NRA give, is that it is for the purpose of self-defense in an increasingly violent world. The NRA even asserts it decreases violence. But studies cited in an excellent book, Gun Violence: The Real Costs by Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig show that gun use tends to increase gun violence—i.e., there are almost 4 times more fatalities in gun-related robberies than other robberies with knives, clubs, etc.
And a study cited in the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) on home invasions found that just 3 percent were able to use guns against someone who broke in (or attempted to do so) while they were at home, when 40 percent of households have guns.
So it turns out guns are not very helpful in self-defense. Also overlooked is the fact that criminals are predators, and predators prey on the weakest and most vulnerable, not those who look like they can defend themselves. So really, does the agenda of the NRA to abolish all gun controls do more than reinforce the fear factor, the fear that your neighbor may be your assailant?

“But where does the encouragement of vigilante (in)justice fit into this picture?” asks Krugman. “In part it’s the same old story — the long-standing exploitation of public fears, especially those associated with racial tension, to promote a pro-corporate, pro-wealthy agenda. It’s neither an accident nor a surprise that the National Rifle Association and ALEC have been close allies all along.”

The culture of violence is not a pretty picture in our crowded cities in particular. Philadelphia averaged more than 30 gun-related deaths per month in 2011, when Europe as a whole had less than 300 per year. The last time U.S. gun violence was this high was during the Great Depression, when we had gangsters like Al Capone, John Dillinger, and Bonnie and Clyde.
English Sociologist Richard Wilkinson has brought this out in books and lectures, especially his TEDx lecture on the roots of violence and crime, in which he charts that countries with the most inequality in wealth are also the most violent countries. And surprise, the U.S. is now one of the most unequal countries—in terms of wealth and opportunities for wealth—in the world, as has been brought out by the CIA World Factbook. It is ranked 94th of the 136 countries ranked by the CIA for income inequality, next to Camaroon, Zimbabwe, which are some of Africa’s poorest countries.
There are many who will say that the deeds of a psychopath cannot be prevented. But is that the point when it is so ridiculously easy for an individual to purchase an arsenal without an alarm being set off? Why would anyone such as the Aurora, Colo. shooter need 6,000 rounds, for instance, said the New York Times?

“With a few keystrokes, the suspect, James E. Holmes, ordered 3,000 rounds of handgun ammunition, 3,000 rounds for an assault rifle and 350 shells for a 12-gauge shotgun — an amount of firepower that costs roughly $3,000 at the online sites — in the four months before the shooting, according to the police. It was pretty much as easy as ordering a book from Amazon.”

Do we need another reason to require reporting such weapon sales, other than for war?

Harlan Green © 2012

We Can’t Stall the Recovery!

Financial FAQs

It is really disgusting that there isn’t the political will to grow more jobs, both here and in Europe. And creating more jobs is the key to bringing us out of the deep hole of the Great Recession, of course. For if we don’t climb out soon, the U.S. could become just another Third World country—not only in terms of income inequality, but other indicators of national well-being, such as health care.

Why isn’t more being done, both here and in Europe? Paul Krugman’s piece on the death of the confidence fairy explains the fallacies behind the German’s belief that cutting back on government spending and benefits would cause interest rates to fall and employers to hire because they would have more confidence in the future.

“What’s wrong with the prescription of spending cuts as the remedy for Europe’s ills,” asks Krugman? “One answer is that the confidence fairy doesn’t exist — that is, claims that slashing government spending would somehow encourage consumers and businesses to spend more have been overwhelmingly refuted by the experience of the past two years. So spending cuts in a depressed economy just make the depression deeper.”

The confidence fairies in the U.S. are led by extreme right wing conservatives who continue their attempts to divert wealth to the wealthiest by reducing government spending enough "to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub", as Grover Norquist once famously said, architect of the no tax increase pledge signed by more than 200 Republican legislators, or Ron Paul, who wants to turn the clock back 150 years when the U.S. was a rural economy and there was less need for an effective national government that would benefit the majority of citizens.

The U.S. has done much better with the various fiscal stimulus plans, including the 2 percent payroll tax and GW Bush tax cuts, both due to expire this year. But since conservatives have not allowed additional stimulus measures, 2012 doesn’t look as favorable, says the Congressional Budget Office,  in a Bloomberg Marketwatch article.

“Since the stimulus began to wane in late 2010, real sales in the private sector have grown at a 2.8 percent annual rate, while government consumption expenditures and investment (goods and services the government buys directly) have fallen at a 2.8 percent annual rate, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The other big category of government spending — transfer payments to individuals in the form of Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, food stamps and the like — has also turned negative, falling at a 0.9 percent annual rate after jumping nearly 17 percent in late 2009.”

So if Republicans succeed in preventing more stimulus spending, it could stall the U.S. recovery, not to speak of our standing among developed countries. As an example, the New York Times highlighted how far the U.S. has fallen behind in health care in a recently released World Health Organization study of premature births.  This is on top of many other studies that show the U.S. falling further behind in longevity, and even average heights, as our health care system continues to deteriorate.

It is no coincidence all developed countries have universal health care that Republicans continue to attack as too much government. That is why one of the largest casualties of the enormous diversion of wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest one percent has been affordable health care. Minnesota is just one battleground, where Republicans are attempting to block insurance exchanges that would make health insurance more affordable.

And we know why. “The exchange is the centerpiece of the new health care system envisioned by Mr. Obama,” said the New York Times article. “In the exchange, people who do not have insurance from employers will be able to get comparative information on health plans, insurers will compete on price and benefits, and the federal government will offer subsidies to lower- and middle-income people buying insurance.”

Can there be anything more important than improving the overall health of Americans? Improving their health care system is the first step taken by underdeveloped countries on their path to entering the modern world, while U.S. conservatives seem bent on returning the U.S. to a less-developed status to enhance their already wealthy supporters.

Harlan Green © 2012

The Have and Have-Not States

Popular Economics Weekly
A very interesting study came out recently which analyzed the percentages of passport holders in each state. The results were perhaps not so startling. Those states with the highest percentage of passport holders had also the most diverse population, were most educated, most politically liberal, and the wealthiest. Of course, wealth seems to go in hand with education, which shouldn’t be surprising. But those same states also had the best public services, most creative workforce and best health care outcomes, as well.
Conversely, those states with the fewest passport holders were the least educated, least wealthy, and had the least amount of governmental services—the poorest states, in a word. What does this mean for our future? It means we are slowly evolving into the have and have-not states, with those red states in the Midwest and South falling behind in receiving the benefits of a modern society.

Another way of looking at it is this tells us which policies work. Downsizing government, privatizing health care, and schools doesn’t create more wealth for the many—just the few, as has been proved by the huge shift in wealth upwards since the 1970s. Good and available public services in education, health care, and infrastructure create more wealth, not less.
Let us start with wealth. Maryland leads with a $34,000 median per capita income, followed by New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Alaska, and Massachusetts. New York, California, and New Hampshire aren’t far behind. Conversely, Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama, and Arkansas are at the bottom of the wealth ladder.

Those states also have the highest and lowest educated workforces, respectively, and even more importantly, are the most innovative workforce. There is a reason for it. The higher percentage passport-holding citizens have more open personality traits, such as Openness to Experience, according to studies done by Cambridge University Psychologist Jason Rentfrow and his colleagues.

And finally, states with more passport holders are also happier. There is a significant correlation (.55) between happiness (measured via Gallup surveys) and a state’s percentage of passport holders.  Yet again, that correlation holds when we control for income. Though it is a leap, this tells us why there is also such an unequal distribution of wealth, and what it does to the poorest states. They have less access to the rest of the world—whether via world class universities or even international airports.
So the question should be how to bring the Have-Not states into the 21^st century?
Harlan Green © 2011