I just cannot accept the idea that we can print as much money as we want.

Neither do I, nor do any of the MMT economists. In fact, they take inflation very seriously and clearly state that it represents the upper limit to spending. However, inflation isn’t as simple as how much money is in the economy. It is about available resources and labor. If Congress decides a particular goal is worth spending on and there is enough slack in both resources and labor to realize that goal the spending will impose no inflationary pressure. The market will always ramp up production and hire more workers to capture the available demand before raising prices.

Yet, I do not think it matters. I think we can get the money we need to fund every program that both you and I want.

Macroeconomics is about much more than just finding money to “pay for” programs. When one breaks down the effect of Medicare 4 All on the economy it becomes questionable if a tax to pay for it is advisable. Jobs will have to be found for over a million people now owing their living to the insurance industry, both working directly in the industry and administration for providers. The government can always “afford” to hire them to do socially beneficial work in their communities, but it is much preferred that the private sector absorb them. That may require tax “credits”.

I would prefer to have a better monetary system; one that is not so ‘debt-centric.’ I just don’t know what it would look like. For now, I don’t see a need to change the monetary system in order to get the programs that are needed now.

This is a common misconception surrounding MMT. MMT describes how the monetary system “CURRENTLY WORKS”, and is not something that needs to be “implemented”. It should be more than obvious that the monopoly issuer of the nation’s currency never “needs” to tax or borrow its own currency back to enable future spending. The US dollar is self-funding, which is necessary to enable the government to provision itself. Both taxation and borrowing are methods of drawing down demand to prevent inflation. Borrowing is temporary and taxation is a permanent destruction of money. If one is familiar with Fed and Treasury operations it would also be obvious that neither can “fund” spending because it is not possible to collect or borrow what doesn’t exist yet.

While it is possible to limp along between recessions with the common misunderstandings how much better could our economy be if taxation and spending were decoupled. Think of Social Security and Medicare which most believe are dependent upon payroll deductions and Treasury bonds. Neither adds any ability for the government “funding” of benefits. FDR even stated that the purpose of the FICA tax was to give workers a sense of ownership and a legal claim to their benefits when he proposed Social Security, not to pay for the program after the US rescinded the convertibility of dollars to gold in ‘34.

I just can’t get to ‘printing money with no consequence.’ I guess that is the difference between me, a Warren supporter and you, a Bernie supporter. I think we are splitting hairs here.

There is always a consequence attached to spending money, especially when it is the federal government doing the spending. Deficit spending not only funds Treasury bonds, but is the only “net” source of money the private sector has to fund economic growth, retire private debt, or store value from commerce. With the current fervor to “balance” the budget, it isn’t hard to see where that will go considering the importance of deficits, especially in a country that has a consistent trade deficit and allows extremes of wealth accumulation, both currency drains for the private sector.

If there is any doubt, I would refer you to the last seven times we came within 2% of balance for more than 3 consecutive quarters, the last being the Clinton surplus that is touted as “responsible” budgeting. The result of all seven was recession or depression. Starving the economy of currency results in higher private-sector debt and simultaneously removes currency necessary to retire that debt. This economic falsehood is only possible with constant growth that “rolls over” private bank debt, until it doesn’t. Not a good plan.