The real difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans (and neoliberal Democrats) understand modern economics while keeping everyone else, especially voters, stuck in gold standard logic and general myths arrived at by conflating the budget process of the monopoly issuer of the currency with their own.

This was actually pretty easy to accomplish as very few among Democrats are both macroeconomists and give a damn about the people. It is only natural to project a lifetime of experience with money, especially if one is successful at it, onto the government. Using words like “deficit” and “debt” to describe rather mundane and irrelevant accounting identities helped that effort greatly.

Here are some “truths” about any modern economy that creates its own sovereign currency and only issues debt denominated in that same currency.

1. A monopoly issuer of any currency never “needs” its own currency back to spend, and it must spend prior to collecting taxes or selling its debt or there is no currency to collect of borrow. This makes both taxation and borrowing means to limit currency in circulation or realize social goals, not “revenue” to enable its spending of the currency it can create on demand.
2. Without a commodity pin or fixed exchange rate limiting currency creation monetary inflation is only possible when all available resources and labor are deployed. Individual commodities may rise in price due to shortages but never due to the amount of money in circulation.
3. Deficits are “required” in any economy that is a net importer and allows extreme wealth accumulation. Not compensating for both sufficiently with new money creation deprives the economy of its lifeblood and makes it dependent upon private bank debt. A balanced budget leaves nothing in the economy to store value/save or retire private bank debt, effectively stealing resources from the private sector necessary to maintain a functioning government.
4. Banks cannot actually create money. They create “credit” accounts that the Fed monetizes only to enable interbank transfers, but the reserves created are “obligations” to the banks, not assets. They are always kept in balance with the sum of “principle” of loans in each bank and are depleted entirely upon retirement of the loan. Business can shuffle money around between winners and losers, but cannot create a single dime.

Once these economic realities are realized it’s quite easy to see that Republicans use the power of the purse to circumvent the market economy and shovel money directly to the wealthy and the owners of the war machine. It is only when Democrats come into power that Republicans suddenly become deficit hawks wanting to cut any program that benefits the working class and poor to keep them subservient to employers.

Democrats have joined this money train of donations from as long ago as the ’60s when they abandoned their roots in the working middle class to seek out deep pocket donors, so don’t expect much pushback from that quarter except as needed to keep their voter base intact. Obama ran as a “people’s” President and immediately upon moving into the White House lined up Wall St darlings and Monsanto execs in his cabinet. He owed his Presidency to his vote against the Iraq war, but expanded Bush’s two wars into seven before leaving.

He is a legend in the eyes of neoliberals for the massive give away in the bailout, which some economists claim was as high as $29 Trillion, and doing as little as possible for workers or the poor, even offering to cut Social Security in a “grand bargain” with Republicans. His signature legislation, Obamacare, was a profit scheme hatched at the Heritage Foundation. In spite of all of this obvious corruption, it is political suicide for any Democrat to speak negatively of him.

Our federal government can “afford” anything that is available and priced in dollars Congress can create at will, including the excess labor the private sector rejects. This means that “any” misery in this economy that could be mitigated with federal spending is entirely a political decision, not economics. There is no debt that taxpayers are on the hook for and some healthy deficit spending not directed to the top earners is what we need right now.

Bernie knows how it works as his chief econ advisor, Dr. Stephanie Kelton, is a proponent of Modern Monetary Theory. He simply chose to not turn his campaign into an economics course and the taxes he is suggesting will only claw back what previous administrations have gifted to the wealthy and Wall St, which we should do anyway just because they have too damn much money and use it to subvert our democratic process.