Money is a necessity in modern commerce, but its reality is misrepresented to the people in order to keep the elite class in control. It is a product of law and its main purpose is to deploy real resources in the economy where they are available for purchase by our government. This is why our government only deals in the denomination it can create on demand without needing a revenue stream.

In the end analysis, the deficit of any currency-issuing government becomes someone's monetary asset in the private sector, and our economy is mostly geared around the elite class owning almost all of it. As an engineer familiar with energy you surely understand "storage and flow", and that is very similar to our monetary system only measured in dollars, not measurements related to energy.

Without the infrastructure to facilitate "flow" there is little value to any amount of storage. Governments spending supplies that flow and what it doesn't recapture (allow to be grounded to neutral) eventually is stored in someone's battary. If the flow is sufficient to power everyone's needs everyone can have a small battery and store some of it.

However, since the elites control the distribution and "load" (price) of everything they make sure that anyone not a member of the elite club only has what they need at the bare minimum to keep them connected in the circuit. The rest is passed on to their own batteries (wealth). The source of the flow never changes, only the quantity, even though the source (Congress) has an unlimited supply of flow (money) available. The only reason to provide less than would be required to accomplish any goal is to keep the elites with big battaries in control. Political choices, not economics, are holding us back.

You are so close to understanding MMT, albeit in your own terminology, that I am waiting for your enevitable "ahaaa" moment.