Press Release

Oct 22 2010

Senate Candidate Bets Congress $100 Million That the U.S. Government Cannot Run out of Money

Warren Mosler Offers $100 Million of His Own Money to Pay Down the Federal Deficit If Any Lawmaker Can Prove Him Wrong

WATERBURY, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Warren Mosler, Connecticut’s Independent candidate for U.S. Senate today announced that it is an indisputable fact that U.S. Government spending is not operationally constrained by revenue and will give $100 million of his own money to pay down the Federal deficit if any Congressman or Senator can prove him wrong. “I am running for U.S. Senate to see my policies implemented to create the 20 million jobs we need. And to do this it must be understood that there is simply no such thing as the U.S. Federal government running out of money, nor is the Federal government operationally dependent on borrowing from China or anyone else. U.S. states, individuals, and companies can indeed become insolvent, but U.S. government checks will never bounce,” states Mosler. “Yes, large Federal deficits that push the economy beyond the point of full employment can lead to inflation or currency devaluation, but not bankruptcy and not bounced checks. If lawmakers today understood this fact, they would not be looking to cut Social Security and we would not still be mired in this disastrous recession.”

With 37 years of experience as an ‘insider’ in monetary operations, Mosler knows that President Obama is wrong when he says that the U.S. government has ‘run out of money’ and is dependent on borrowing from China in order to spend. As Fed Chairman Bernanke publicly stated in March of 2009, the Fed makes payments by simply marking up numbers in bank accounts with its computer. Mosler explains further; “The Government doesn’t get anything ‘real’ when it taxes and doesn’t give up anything ‘real’ when it spends. There is no gold coin that goes into a bucket at the Fed when you are taxed and the government doesn’t hammer a gold coin into its computer when it spends. It just changes numbers in our bank accounts.” Mosler likens this scenario to a football game; when a touchdown is scored, the number on the scoreboard changes from 0 to 6. No one wonders where the stadium got the 6 points, no one demands that stadiums keep a reserve of points in a “lockbox” and no one is worried about using up all the points and thereby denying our children the chance to play.

Warren Mosler urges his opponents, Linda McMahon and Richard Blumenthal, and the entirety of Congress to recognize how the monetary system actually works and implement a full payroll tax (FICA) holiday and his other proposals to restore full employment and prosperity while not cutting Social Security benefits or eligibility.

About Warren Mosler

Warren Mosler is running as an Independent. His populist economic message features: 1) A full payroll tax (FICA) holiday so that people working for a living can afford to buy the goods and services they produce. 2) $500 per capita Federal revenue distribution for the states 3) An $8/hr federally funded job to anyone willing and able to work to facilitate the transition from unemployment to private sector employment. He has also pledged never to vote for cuts in Social Security payments or benefits. Warren is a native of Manchester, Conn., where his father worked in a small insurance office and his mother was a night-shift nurse. After graduating from the University of Connecticut (BA Economics, 1971), and working on financial trading desks in NYC and Chicago, Warren started his current investment firm in 1982. For the last twenty years, Warren has also been involved in the academic community, publishing numerous journal articles, and giving conference presentations around the globe. Mosler’s new book “The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy” is a non-technical guide to the actual workings of the monetary system and exposes the most commonly held misconceptions. He also founded Mosler Automotive, which builds the Mosler MT900, the world’s top performance car that also gets 30 mpg at 55 mph.