Shooting Down Deficit Hawks
Deficit hawks, like dive-bombing kamikazes, are out now again, circling the battleship of our collective efforts to save ourselves. What can we do?
MMT 101
Keeping Score
I promise to stop when the battle is won. Until then, here’s another attempt to improve understanding and shift our broken thinking about government “deficits.”
MMT 101: Response to the Critics Part 3
In this piece, we study the interaction between the government and nongovernment sectors while retaining the consolidation hypothesis.
MMT 101: Response to the Critics Part 2
MMT is frequently criticized for consolidating the treasury and the central bank. In this post, we will address these issues by tackling problems surrounding the nature of money and the role of taxes, and by beginning to deal with the consolidation argument.
MMT 101: A Reply to Critics Part 1
This is Part 1 of a six part series in which we deal with critics of MMT. As readers of this blog know, our critics continually raise the same old tired critiques of MMT.
Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete
“All federal taxes must meet the test of public policy and practical effect. The public purpose which is served should never be obscured in a tax program under the mask of raising revenue.”
The Problem With How We Talk About the US Debt
We have a big problem with the way the media reports on the national debt. It’s unclear if they don’t understand how federal debt works, if they intentionally write about it in the scariest way possible, or some combination of the two. Let’s start with a passage recently published by NPR: “The pandemic is taking …
Breadth and Taxes
Taxation does not need to be the bitter salve taken with every spoonful of sugar—it is and always has been a way to provide for the general welfare.
Why the New Deal Became the No Deal
The opening photo montage [on the Real Progressives home page] seems to be outlining an over-arching story about why American progressivism needs to make a special effort, now, to re-kindle the vision of Franklin Roosevelt. The activist, direct government spending of Roosevelt’s New Deal pulled America from the depths of the Great Depression, mobilized the …