Money is a unit of measure that is used to enable sales of various commodities over various time lapses. It isn't necessary to know how many chickens are equivalent to a hog as long as both can be priced in the same denomination. It is also not necessary to find someone who needs chickens while also wanting to trade a hog as long as money is used in the transaction for both. Across a large enough population, there is always someone wanting chickens or hogs.
Money is not a "thing" that can be stored for its own sake without some way of assuring buyers and sellers that it will remain somewhat stable between transactions and is widely accepted as payment. While anyone can make a "currency", (grocery coupons qualify) gaining wide acceptance of a currency requires laws that are applicable to everyone conducting commerce. In the US, that begins with our Constitution and is driven by taxation.
Whatever currency you might wish to use, you would be wise to have the currency of the issuing government available when the tax man demands his cut. This allows the government issuing that currency to provision itself without depending upon a revenue stream. Such a government has no need for what it can create at will, but it does need us to need its currency, and to have less of it at times to maintain its value in commerce and its own position as price setter for what it purchases.
Applicable laws to regulate the currency and transactions denominated in it make both taxation and borrowing non-funding mechanisms for the sovereign currency issuer. This means that the word "afford" is not applicable to the issuing government as it can afford anything that potentially exists and can be purchased using its own currency.
The concept of a "balanced" budget at the federal level should be rejected by anyone who can count, but especially by Libertarians who view taxation as theft by legislation. The difference between what a government spends and what it "collects" is the net price it pays for the resources and labor it demands from its citizens.
Every dollar of a federal deficit becomes someone's financial asset in the private sector, regardless of how it is distributed. The US Congress is empowered to create money and levy taxation, but they are not interdependent except that one cannot collect or borrow what doesn't yet exist. The purpose given for such empowerment in our Constitution is to fund "the common welfare", which it cannot do if it claws back every dollar it creates in taxation, which is the definition of theft.
