But Rowe’s model has the government borrowing real resources so I don’t see the relevance of all these MMT talking points.

Let me know when Treasury bonds can be purchased in milk so I can stock ahead for my cereal needs. The debt is denominated in the US dollar here, and “ONLY” the US dollar is available as payment when they mature. They are a product of the gold standard that offered to pay interest on excess reserves (which can only result from deficit spending) in exchange for giving up the demand they placed on the gold reserve (liquidity) for a specified time until taxation could drawdown (cancel) reserves to accommodate their value.

They buffered the wild fluctuations in the money supply between spending and collecting taxes and allowed Congress to anticipate taxation to maximize the value of the gold reserve in the economy. They represent past productivity that wasn’t used to pay a federal tax obligation, not a mortgage on future productivity. Without a gold reserve to defend they are mostly just welfare for the already wealthy and the banking system and fodder for creating fear of the federal government’s ability to spend/create money in the economy to the benefit of the people.