A Little Unsolicited Advice to Michele Bachmann

As many of our faithful readers know, an important "prong" in the "Four Prong Strategy" to implement (and maintain) the Just Third Way is getting to "prime movers." We've identified (as if it were difficult) two key prime movers: the president of the United States, and the pope. We've actually gotten to the previous incumbent of the See of Peter twice, having had two audiences with Blessed John Paul II and received his encouragement of CESJ's work. Now we're working on getting a meeting to introduce these ideas to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, and present a possible plan of action.


We've had less success getting to the president, although you'd think it would be easier, since the pope has the ultimate care of a billion or so people, while the president of the U.S. has partial responsibility for about a third of that number. That's why we need to get to possibly viable candidates for president. And that's why we sent this e-mail this morning:

August 15, 2011

Mrs. Michele Bachmann
c/o Bachmann for President
P. O. Box 96891
Washington, D.C. 20090-6891

Dear Mrs. Bachmann:

While we admire your stand on many things, may we offer some unsolicited advice from the Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ), a natural law-based think tank in Arlington, Virginia?

One, we think you need a Pro-Life economic agenda that can appeal across the board to all Americans. We make the case for this in our book, Supporting Life: The Case for a Pro-Life Economic Agenda (2010). We would be happy to send you a complimentary copy. The agenda itself is available in detail on the CESJ website. [N.B.: Blog readers are encouraged to go to Amazon and post (good) reviews of the book. Just the book. Amazon removes any reviews that allude to or mention other reviews.]

Two, as a tax attorney and member of Congress you are more aware than we are of the desperate need for tax and monetary reform. Ironically, the income tax system, designed to fund government operations, has been diverted to social engineering and attempting to provide funding for economic growth. At the same time, the Federal Reserve, intended to finance private sector economic growth by providing an elastic currency by means of rediscounting private sector bills of exchange for qualified agricultural, commercial and industrial development, has been used to finance government.

The result has been the establishment of a currency backed by government bills of credit (debt) instead of private sector bills of exchange (assets). Because bills of credit — "anticipation notes" — are backed by politicians' idea of the present value of future tax collections by the government instead of the present value of existing and future private sector marketable goods and services, it is possible, indeed, almost inevitable that governments will assume far more debt than can be repaid in order to meet current political objectives with no connection to productive capacity or taxing ability. Consequently, an economic program to reform both the tax system and the financial system is essential — as is a financially feasible program of rapid economic growth to repay existing debt and raise living standards . . . to say nothing of eliminating all economic rationalizations for abortion.

Three, there is the issue of jobs. There are two primary sources of income for people, aside from alms and redistribution: labor and capital. Labor income is called wages. Capital income is called profits or dividends. When the value of labor falls relative to capital as an input to production, common sense as well as respect for human dignity suggests that propertyless workers should become owners of capital to supplement or replace wage income.

Anyone who argues that the great mass of people must not own capital and must be restricted to wages and welfare for income — as did Keynes — does not understand money, credit, banking, or finance. New capital can be financed not by cutting consumption and accumulating money savings, as Keynes declared (without proof) is necessarily the case, but by monetizing the present value of future marketable goods and services to be produced by the capital being financed by discounting and rediscounting bills of exchange, either "business to business" (cir. 60% of economic activity in 2008), or discounted at commercial banks and rediscounted at the Federal Reserve. Financially speaking, sustainable economic growth is not tied down by what we have produced in the past, but limited only by what we can produce in the future, as any graph of economic development and population growth from the 16th century onwards reveals. Focus on jobs for the sake of income is a diversion. The focus should be on employment of all resources, both labor and capital, for the sake of production — and getting us out of debt.

Four, have you considered Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma as a running mate?

If any of this intrigues you, you should meet with Norman G. Kurland, president of CESJ. A lawyer-economist who attended the University of Chicago, he is possibly the world's leading expert on what we call "the Just Third Way" and its application in "Capital Homesteading." Capital Homesteading is a way for every child, woman, and man to become a direct owner of enough capital through tax-deferred accumulation of assets to generate ownership income sufficient to meet common domestic needs. Given the proposed monetary and fiscal reforms embodied in Capital Homesteading, we estimate that a "typical" family of four would pay no taxes of any kind until aggregate income exceeds $100,000, and an individual from birth to age 65 could accumulate capital assets of cir. $500,000 generating a conservatively estimated $50,000 per year.

Thank you. We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours, blah, blah.

*************

Anyway, you know that just one e-mail isn't going to do it. We did get a nice auto-response from Ms. Bachmann's campaign HQ, but, face it, she's clearly becoming a top GOP contender, and is getting a LOT of e-mails. Nobody is going to notice one e-mail raising issues that, frankly, are more than a little outside the box.

That's where you come in. Send a brief e-mail to "Bachmann for President." The e-mail address is "info [at] michelebachmann [dot] com. Suggest that she look into Capital Homesteading as a growth-oriented economic program that respects life and pays down debt, and that she and her advisors meet with Norman Kurland.

There. Wasn't that easy?

#30#