MMT to Senator Kerry-

Read ‘The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy’,
Lose the long face, and save us from ourselves.

Taxes function to regulate the economy, not to bring in dollars to spend

The idea that US- the actual issuer of its own currency, can be the next Greece- a user of the currency like a US state, a business, or a household, is entirely inapplicable.

There is no looming US government funding crisis.

There is a massive shortage of aggregate demand.

It’s not silly, it’s tragic.

Sen. Kerry: Budget Deal Makes America Look ‘Silly in a Lot of People’s Minds’

By Nicholas Ballasy

April 12 (CNSNew.com) — Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) said the budget deal negotiated by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-Nev.) and President Barack Obama makes America look “silly in a lot of people’s minds.”

“I think it’s no secret that I didn’t like the process,” Kerry said at a Capitol Hill press conference on Tuesday. “I don’t think it served the United States Congress or Senate well to have that fraction of the budget, with 100 percent of the cuts coming from 12 percent of the budget, threaten to hold up the government of the United States to the point of shutdown.”

“I think it did all of us, frankly, I think that process did us all a disservice as Americans,” he said. “I think the country looks silly in a lot of people’s minds when we have so much bigger budget challenges in front of us.”

Kerry appeared with Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) at the press conference where they announced their legislation, “The Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011,” which they said would protect individuals’ personal information from being sold by companies without their knowledge.

Kerry commented on the budget process at the end of the conference.

“John McCain would agree with me and, as I think so many of our colleagues do now, there’s no way to resolve our budget challenge unless we put everything on the table,

” said Kerry. “That means Medicare, Medicaid, fix Social Security without cutting benefits and, obviously, look at the Defense Department spending, procurement and other things. Everything has to be on the budget.”

The budget compromise reached late on Friday (and to be voted on this Thursday) to avoid a government shutdown cuts federal spending by $38.5 billion for the rest of fiscal year 2011.