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> It's never been a matter of money. We've seen the government can pass multi trillion dollar bills on demand and increase the budget at will. Not without cons

> It's never been a matter of money. We've seen the government can pass multi trillion dollar bills on demand and increase the budget at will. Not without consequences. Contrary to the headlines, we can’t simply print as much money into existence as we want. For example, the actual cost of the war was closer to $2T. The $6.4T number quoted in this headline is the theoretical sum total including interest payments on the debt well into the future. Simply passing bills to spend money that we don’t have may get things done, but our children have to pay for it eventually. Even cheap debt must still be serviced. A significant portion of your tax bill every year goes to servicing interest on national debt. So no, it’s not simply a matter of political will to spend all the money we want. There are limits.

nightski 5y ago
Yeah I agree, you can't print money without consequences. But my point was when the political will exists things seem to get done regardless of whether we can afford them or not.
minikites 5y ago
>Simply passing bills to spend money that we don’t have may get things done, but our children have to pay for it eventually. I always see this argument, but never a deeper reason why. As far as I know, the projections for every developed economy looks like this, is every country going to go bankrupt eventually? If the economy is growing, we can in fact print money with little to no consequence of inflation. The US can "borrow" money incredibly cheaply. Government spending stimulates the economy, we can spend and do much more than we currently are, if we merely choose to build instead of destroy.
- sk2020 5y ago
  Why not round everyone’s bank account up to the nearest $1,000,000,000,000,000? Wouldn’t such unprecedented “stimulus” create unprecedented growth and end poverty forever? Would our newfound quadrillions end scarcity of resources? If not, why not?
  - minikites 5y ago
    How does this nonsensical example refute or even address my argument?
aiisjustanif 5y ago
> Simply passing bills to spend money that we don’t have may get things done, but our children have to pay for it eventually. Government debt is not that simple at all. A governments debts and budgets are no the same as a household. This also completely ignores economic growth and how types of inflation (cost-push vs demand-pull) affect if inflation or debt is “good” or “bad”. > So no, it’s not simply a matter of political will to spend all the money we want. There are limits. Please explain the limits if it’s a dollar amount. Most economists agree that we actually do not know what the “limit” is and mostly we noticed very little if anything troubling caused directly by the stimulus packages. They overwhelmingly helped keep economic growth stable.

nightski 5y ago

Yeah I agree, you can't print money without consequences. But my point was when the political will exists things seem to get done regardless of whether we can afford them or not.

minikites 5y ago

>Simply passing bills to spend money that we don’t have may get things done, but our children have to pay for it eventually. I always see this argument, but never a deeper reason why. As far as I know, the projections for every developed economy looks like this, is every country going to go bankrupt eventually? If the economy is growing, we can in fact print money with little to no consequence of inflation. The US can "borrow" money incredibly cheaply. Government spending stimulates the economy, we can spend and do much more than we currently are, if we merely choose to build instead of destroy.

sk2020 5y ago
Why not round everyone’s bank account up to the nearest $1,000,000,000,000,000? Wouldn’t such unprecedented “stimulus” create unprecedented growth and end poverty forever? Would our newfound quadrillions end scarcity of resources? If not, why not?
- minikites 5y ago
  How does this nonsensical example refute or even address my argument?

aiisjustanif 5y ago

> Simply passing bills to spend money that we don’t have may get things done, but our children have to pay for it eventually. Government debt is not that simple at all. A governments debts and budgets are no the same as a household. This also completely ignores economic growth and how types of inflation (cost-push vs demand-pull) affect if inflation or debt is “good” or “bad”. > So no, it’s not simply a matter of political will to spend all the money we want. There are limits. Please explain the limits if it’s a dollar amount. Most economists agree that we actually do not know what the “limit” is and mostly we noticed very little if anything troubling caused directly by the stimulus packages. They overwhelmingly helped keep economic growth stable.