Even if we decide that raising deficits indefinitely is not sustainable, cutting spending will not be the answer.

The problem lies in the fact that it won’t be a “decision”, but a long-held assumption that deficits are unsustainable. Decisions are made by taking into consideration all facts and data available, which hasn’t been the case in public spending at the federal level since the ’70s. In fact, taxing for revenue has been obsolete since ’34 when FDR ended the convertibility of dollars to gold domestically.

Congress, as the monopoly issuer of US dollars, has no logical reason to “balance its books”, and yet the concept of doing so has become a political holy grail on both sides of the ideological divide. Right up to the beginning of the pandemic, Nancy Pelosi, the leader of Democrats in the house, was mandating “payfors” for any legislation involving federal spending, as if it were her personal finances she was managing.

The only benefactors of such policy are those who gain from advancing a neoliberal agenda that places markets between the people and the only source of dollars they have, the federal government. Primary among those is the private banking industry that is more than happy to overextend private credit to the point of endangering the general economy, knowing that the government will always bail them out should economic downturns stress their ability to lend.