Additional Essays, different dates

Today, August 6, 2025, I'm writing here, the November 2020 site, about lesser important news. At the top of my blog page are my BIG IDEAS essays, the most important statements. Those title articles are more important than the notes I'm adding here. I'll place the lesser important essays here chronologically, the most recent on top, the first on the bottom. 

Today: August 6, 2025 

Slashing More than a Fifth                                         of Non-Military Spending     

What's going on with Trump/GOP's cuts to government services and agency practices?

I was reading an article, "They Shoot Messengers, Don't They? What Trump and Erdogon Share" at the Center for Economic Policy Research. Answer: They both fire department heads who report bad news. The article concerns the firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently. In the middle I came across a list of budget cuts and acts of sabotage against government agencies. I began to research cuts to government services as a result.

A little background first, and then the CEPR article:

In a nutshell, the One Big Beautiful Boondoggle Act  (see the link to an article from the Tax Foundation) will cut  federal tax revenues by $5 trillion (over 10 years). It's like digging a hole 5 feet deep. But economic growth will fill-in 1 foot, and cuts to government programs will fill in another 1 foot, leaving the hole 3 feet deep. But, the interest payments needed will deepen the hole again by another foot. The hole will be 4 feet deep in 10 years. This article from the Tax Foundation explains the cuts. These $5 trillion in cuts will be balanced by about $1 trillion in economic growth and $1 trillion in cuts to programs like Medicaid, SNAP, climate mitigation, and renewable energy support. But increased interest payments on borrowing will cost the government another $1 trillion -- resulting in a net national debt increase of $4 trillion over 10 years. (from the Tax Foundation article, hyperlinked above)

Big numbers, but let's put them into perspective. Adding $4 trillion more debt in 10 years is nothing. The total private household net worth today is $170 trillion. The national public debt in December 2024 was $28.9 trillion. Another $4 trillion brings it to about $33 trillion. Private wealth has grown by 132% (a multiple of 2.3 times) since March 2009, 16 years. It was $48.475 trillion in March 2009, and now it is $170 trillion, and adjusting for inflation it has increased by a multiple of 2.3 (from $73 trillion to $170 trillion). Wealth in "real" inflation adjusted terms grew by almost $100 trillion in 16 years, which is a growth of $6.06 trillion each year, or $60 trillion in 10 years (inflation adjusted). It appears that our economy is structured to increase wealth, and to increase poverty. 

The public debt ($28.9 trillion) is one sixth (17%) of national privately held wealth ($170 trillion). If I had just $100 in my wallet, and also a normal expense of $17, I would not go out and get a loan to pay it. I'd take out my wallet and pay it. That's what we should do --- tax wealth. Or at least raise the income, capital gains and financial transaction tax on the multi-millionaires. Actually we should tax everything exasperates the enormous wealth disparities we experience. Sorry if that offends you. But to continue ------         

Which agencies will see reduced budgets? All agencies except Homeland Security, Transportation Dept., and the Veterans Administration. Department of Defence and War receives an increase, but is not included in the graph below. 

From another article with a graph and some highlights:

I found the graph confusing, but follow the red line, it shows the percentage of budget cuts to various agencies, the right side scale; at the far right the NSF and EPA and SBA receive massive cuts.  The averag cut for all is 22%. HUD, State Dept., Dept. of Labor, Dept of Interior that administers Food Stamps (SNAP) are cut by 35%. Social Security appears to receive no cut. 

The second largest federal department is HHS, health and human services; it receives a 25% cut. Think Medicaid and Medicare.    

"President Trump on Friday [April 25, 2025] unveiled an initial version of his $1.7 trillion fiscal 2026 discretionary funding budget, which included staggering cuts of 22% to non-defense agencies. (These are budgetary "discretionary" departments, not the "nondiscretionary programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare.)

The Defense Department would see its funding increased by 13% to more than $1 trillion, more than 10% of which would come in the proposed reconciliation bill. Nearly every other agency in government would see dramatic reductions.

---------------------   Now for the article from CEPR, "They Shoot Messengers, Don't They" -----   

From this article at the CEPR I found a paragraph about spending reductions or eliminated practices:

Example One: Human Rights, "The State Department under Marco Rubio seems to think little of human rights and seeks to change the term’s definition. NPR reports that the department will no longer include criticisms of poor [foreign] prison conditions, [foreign] government corruption, or political processes that are restrictive, in its reports on international human rights. That means [foreign] government repression, such as restricting peaceful assembly or preventing free and fair elections, will no longer be documented by the agency." (from this CEPR.org report) 

Example Two: Data on Greenhouse Gases: "The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to eliminate long-standing requirements for polluters to collect and report their emissions of the heat-trapping gases that cause climate change. The move, ordered by a Trump appointee, would affect thousands of industrial facilities across the country, including oil refineries, power plants and coal mines as well as those that make petrochemicals, cement, glass, iron and steel, according to documents reviewed by ProPublica."

Additional information at this Reuters' article. 

Example Three: U.S. Census reduces staff, "As federal agencies brace for the Trump administration's next round of slashing the U.S. government, recent staff departures are already raising concerns about whether the Census Bureau can continue producing reliable statistics for the country."

Example Four: Censuring Academic Journals: "The Trump administration has slashed funding for universities and scientific research. Now, its lackeys appear to be escalating their tactics by menacing academic journals. . . . "A publication's editorial decisions are none of the government's business, whether it's a newspaper or a medical journal," JT Morris, a senior supervising attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression"

Example Five: Disappearing Government Agencies' web pages: "On Friday January 31, 2025, several federal government datasets went offline. The datasets taken down included some widely used, large-scale national health surveys, indices, and data dashboards that inform research, policy making, and media coverage about health care and public health. For example, several Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surveys and datasets were offline. . . (re a CDC survey now offline) The survey has been used for decades to inform policymakers, the media, and the public on a wide range of health topics, such as obesity rates, access to breast cancer screenings, vaccination rates, and the share of people with pre-existing conditions." (from Kaiser Family Foundation article)

Example Six: Budget Cuts to agencies: Headstart, Environmental Protection Agency, IRS. "Looking at his initial or “skinny” budget proposal, along with an “appendix” the White House released last Friday, Trump’s budget would eliminate at least 46 programs and agencies." (from a PBS article, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/46-programs-trump-wants-to-eliminate-according-to-his-proposed-budget)

Example Seven: Elimination of Climate Change mitigation laws: "Summary

Trump proposes $15 billion cuts to renewable energy, carbon capture

Cancels $6 billion for EV chargers

Unclear how Congress would make cuts to funds already in US law

$4.5 billion in USDA cuts includes conservation programs

Plan entirely cuts EPA program on environmental justice

WASHINGTON, May 2 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Friday proposed cutting billions of dollars in federal funding next year for projects including renewable energy and electric vehicle chargers, and gutting programs aimed at curbing climate change.

The proposal to Congress was part of a wider request to cut $163 billion in 2026 federal spending, slashing more than a fifth of non-military spending.

Five years ago, I wrote,        

          March 24, 2020           

The Economic Fallout of the Corona Virus Crisis  -- The Nation Is Not Prepared, and What To Do? 

Why a Moratorium on Rent and Mortgage Payment Is Needed  

American families must now brace for the steepest collapse of GDP since 1958, says Barron’s magazine quoting Goldman Sachs and J P Morgan banks. A quarter of GDP will soon be missing, a drop from $21.4 trillion to $16 trillion is projected. Personal and household incomes will collapse also. This is will be a year to remember. 

Americans are not financially prepared for this. In September 2017 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published a Financial Well-Being report and asked adults "How much money do you have in savings today (in cash,checking, and savings account balances)?” This is called "Liquid savings." 

less than $250  — 24%

less than $1,000 — 35%

less than $5,000 — 54%

less than $20,000 —  73%  American adults answered. 

Meaning the majority are not prepared for an extended loss of income. 

The Prosperity Now web page, Scorecard, found that -- Nationwide 25.4% of credit card holders have reached the 75% of credit limit on their cards; 

Those who have saved for emergencies — 57.8% have saved —  42.2% have not saved 

Consumers with Debt in Collections — 21.2%

Another poll asked about missing a paycheck, every two weeks, would it be a difficulty? The American Payroll Association reports 74% said yes; 40% said a major difficulty, and 34% said a slight difficulty. A Harris poll found that respondents say they always (23%) or usually (17%) or sometimes (38%) live paycheck to paycheck, for a total of 78%. 

Many household budgets cannot fall back on savings to get through a "shelter in place" order. Without savings and without an income, many Americans are between a rock and a stone wall. A HUD.gov site says that 9% of Americans pay more than 50% of income on housing. A Harvard University study shows that 30% of Americans pay over 30% of their income on housing. Another Harvard University study found that 1 in 4 renters pay more than 50% of their income in rent. Workers in “non-essential” jobs no longer have incomes, they are directly affected by the work stoppage, and many rent their living quarters. 

The Brookings Institute report “Meet the Low-Wage Workforce” examines the incomes of roughly half of U.S. workers, the low-earning half. It shows that $19,000 a year is the average income for 67% of workers who earn below the median wage income for all workers, $32,838. The other 33% are very low earning workers earning below $7,500 a year. If we take the total income in the economy, about $18.8 trillion, and divide that among the 168 million workers, we arrive at an average of $112,000 per worker. 

We have staggering inequality. The U.S. is peculiarly bi-polar in the department of income and wealth. It may surprise many to know, and it surprised this writer, that the average wealth per household is $924,000. On March 12, 2020, the Federal Reserve reported in its Flow of Funds report, page 2, that total household net worth peaked at $118.3 trillion. Divided among the nation’s 128 million households that comes to $924K per household. Unfortunately 40% of households own just 0.1% of all wealth, states the Credit Suisse report on Global Wealth. Average wealth per adult in that group is about $2,000. 

The average yearly household income, not wealth, before taxes is over $140,000, states the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 2.1. But half of households have incomes below $64,000, and many of them much below $64,000. The per person annual “disposable personal income” after taxes is now $50,504 says the same BEA table. Does it surprise anyone to learn that $24,405 is the median income per person for all four person households? The average is $50,504, but half have less than $24,405 per person, and often much less than $24,405. Those in official poverty live with below $6,500 per person. See the U.S. Census hinc-01 table. The numbers are difficult to digest, but the incongruity is not. 

It’s a sad truth, that many Americans are unaware of the great disparities among U.S. households. The household medians, for both wealth and income, are far below the averages which are raised by the very high amounts at the tippy-tippy-top, the 1 percent.

The United Way charity reports in its ALICE report that 40% of Americans live with hardship or experience poverty. In a land where $50,000 of after-tax income per person is a fact, and over $400,000 of savings per adult is a fact, we have 40% who struggle to pay for necessities. It is a strain on the imagination. An income of $61,589 for a four person household, in 2020, is the ALICE Survival Budget income. This is 2.4 times the poverty official level. Meaning that the poverty level is much lower than the stressed out level. 

Will low income workers be able to pay for necessities over the next few months is an extremely critical and unanswered question. The nation is watching. We have the resources, the nation is very wealthy, but can and will we protect and support those who have no “spare tire”.

The next few months or year will be an agonizing struggle economically for most households. The objective of planners and of our democratic process should be to insure that most workers and families get through this desperate period, and that future prosperity will be shared instead of our past 40 to 50 years of one-sided advantage.  

            WHAT TO DO --               
The above was a letter to the New York Times, March 24, 2020. Below are 1) an article by Robert Pollin, and 2) a series of proposals from economist Jack Rasmus, and 3) an Op-Ed in the NYTimes written by economist Robert Kuttner. 

Let me recommend a few real economists. Jack Rasmus has a very elaborate plan for $4 trillion in government stimulus. 

Robert Pollin, at PERI, UMass/Amherst, also can add some intelligent thought that the nation would be happy to consider. 

To the New York Times: Thanks for publishing the Robert Kuttner piece calling for a WWII-like mobilization. 

The Case of the Lost Dog Who Did Not Bark, (that's me, I wrote this Nov. 2018)

I'm disappointed with Google, but it is free. I lost my original blog -- http://benL8.blogspot.com -- Economics Without Greed --- due to some error with passwords, and now I start a new "son of . . ." blog, part two. Try to find the original with it's laborious essays. And read on here. I'll post something soon enough.      Nice photo, that is Hosmer Lake in Oregon's Cascade range, near Bend, Oregon. It originally was called Mudd Lake, and then changed to Hosmer, an improvement. Like this new blog!

Where is my blog?  -- Still here -- http://benL8.blogspot.com    ---------

       

Today I'm placing some less important news and reporting. My title articles are more important than the notes I'm adding here. I'll place them chronilogically, the most recent on top, the first on the bottom. 

Today: August 6, 2025 

Slashing More than a Fifth of Non-Military Spending 

What's going on with Trump/GOP's cuts to government services and agency practices?

I was reading an article, "They Shoot Messengers, Don't They? What Trump and Erdogon Share" at the Center for Economic Policy Research. Answer: They both fire department heads who report bad news. The article, from the Economic Policy Institute concerns the firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently. In the middle I came across a list of budget cuts and acts of sabotage against government agencies. I began to research cuts to government services as a result.

A little background first:

In a nutshell, the One Big Beautiful Boondoggle Act will cut federal government tax revenues by $5 trillion (over 10 years). This article from the Tax Foundation explains the cuts. This cut will be balanced by about $1 trillion in economic growth and $1 trillion in cuts to programs like Medicaid, SNAP, climate mitigation, and renewable energy support. But increased interest payments on borrowing will cost the government another $1 trillion -- resulting in a net national debt increase of $4 trillion over 10 years. (from the Tax Foundation article, hyperlinked above)

Which agencies will see reduced budgets? All agencies except Homeland Security, the Defense (or War) Department, Transportation Dept., and the Veterans Administration.

From the article, a graph and some highlights:

I found the graph confusing, but follow the red line, it shows the percentage of budget cuts to various agencies; at the far right the NSF and EPA and SBA receive massive cuts. Even Social Security gets a minor cut of about 5%. The averag cut is 22%. HUD, State, Dept. of Labor, Dept of Interior that administers Food Stamps (SNAP) is cut by 35%. The largest department after DOD is HHS, health and human services; it receives a 25% cut.   


"President Trump on Friday [April 25, 2025] unveiled an initial version of his $1.7 trillion fiscal 2026 discretionary funding budget, which included staggering cuts of 22% to non-defense agencies. (These are budgetary "discretionary" departments, not the "nondiscretionary programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare.)

The Defense Department would see its funding increased by 13% to more than $1 trillion, more than 10% of which would come in the proposed reconciliation bill. Nearly every other agency in government would see dramatic reductions.

From this article at the CEPR I found a paragraph about spending reductions or eliminated practices:

Example One: Human Rights, "The State Department under Marco Rubio seems to think little of human rights and seeks to change the term’s definition. NPR reports that the department will no longer include criticisms of poor [foreign] prison conditions, [foreign] government corruption, or political processes that are restrictive, in its reports on international human rights. That means [foreign] government repression, such as restricting peaceful assembly or preventing free and fair elections, will no longer be documented by the agency." (from this CEPR.org report) 

Example Two: Data on Greenhouse Gases: "The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to eliminate long-standing requirements for polluters to collect and report their emissions of the heat-trapping gases that cause climate change. The move, ordered by a Trump appointee, would affect thousands of industrial facilities across the country, including oil refineries, power plants and coal mines as well as those that make petrochemicals, cement, glass, iron and steel, according to documents reviewed by ProPublica."

Additional information at this Reuters' article. 

Example Three: U.S. Census reduces staff, "As federal agencies brace for the Trump administration's next round of slashing the U.S. government, recent staff departures are already raising concerns about whether the Census Bureau can continue producing reliable statistics for the country."

Example Four: Censuring Academic Journals: "The Trump administration has slashed funding for universities and scientific research. Now, its lackeys appear to be escalating their tactics by menacing academic journals. . . . "A publication's editorial decisions are none of the government's business, whether it's a newspaper or a medical journal," JT Morris, a senior supervising attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression"

Example Five: Disappearing Government Agencies' web pages: "On Friday January 31, 2025, several federal government datasets went offline. The datasets taken down included some widely used, large-scale national health surveys, indices, and data dashboards that inform research, policy making, and media coverage about health care and public health. For example, several Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surveys and datasets were offline. . . (re a CDC survey now offline) The survey has been used for decades to inform policymakers, the media, and the public on a wide range of health topics, such as obesity rates, access to breast cancer screenings, vaccination rates, and the share of people with pre-existing conditions." (from Kaiser Family Foundation article)

Example Six: Budget Cuts to agencies: Headstart, Environmental Protection Agency, IRS. "Looking at his initial or “skinny” budget proposal, along with an “appendix” the White House released last Friday, Trump’s budget would eliminate at least 46 programs and agencies." (from a PBS article, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/46-programs-trump-wants-to-eliminate-according-to-his-proposed-budget)

Example Seven: Elimination of Climate Change mitigation laws: "Summary

Trump proposes $15 billion cuts to renewable energy, carbon capture

Cancels $6 billion for EV chargers

Unclear how Congress would make cuts to funds already in US law

$4.5 billion in USDA cuts includes conservation programs

Plan entirely cuts EPA program on environmental justice

WASHINGTON, May 2 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Friday proposed cutting billions of dollars in federal funding next year for projects including renewable energy and electric vehicle chargers, and gutting programs aimed at curbing climate change.

The proposal to Congress was part of a wider request to cut $163 billion in 2026 federal spending, slashing more than a fifth of non-military spending.