Letter to Jenn White

For your interest, here is an Email I sent to Jenn White, a reporter on public radio.

In my fading days, I’m still trying to educate. You might wish to contact your favorite radio or TV personality, too.

Message for Jenn White
Rodger Mitchell
Mar 19, 2025, 11:58 AM

On today’s 1A, I heard your interviewee express the unfortunately common belief that Social Security will run short of dollars, so either benefits must be reduced or FICA must be increased in some way.

This is not correct. Here are the facts, which I have not heard on your show or any other NPR show.

1. Unlike state and local governments, the U.S. federal government is Monetarily Sovereign. It cannot unintentionally run short of its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.
2. Thus, no agency of the government can run short of dollars unless Congress and the President want it to.
3. Social Security is a federal agency. It cannot run short of dollars without Congressional approval.
4. If Congress wished, it could add a trillion or a hundred trillion to Social Security merely by voting to do so.

Who agrees with this?:

Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody. The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print the money to do that.”

Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.”

Jerome Powell: “As a central bank, we have the ability to create money digitally.”

The St. Louis Fed: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills.

“In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.”

Social Security (and Medicare) are not funded by FICA or by any other tax, but rather by Congressional money creation. (And no, it doesn’t cause inflation.)

I know this is not what you have been taught over the years, but if you would like to learn the full implications of Monetary Sovereignty, please feel free to contact me.

I’ve studied this for 30 years. I’ll be glad to help you understand the realities of federal finance.

(But you’d better hurry; next week I’ll be 90 years old)

Kindest regards,

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell