Comment on Pavlina Tcherneva on ‘Tcherneva, Sawicky and Kaboub on MMT and policy’
Blog-Reference
“There is nothing more crippling to a bold policy agenda than the myth that the government can run out of money. This myth is behind every But how will you pay for it? objection to proposals such as a Green New Deal and Medicare for All. New House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has even proposed instituting self-defeating PAYGO (pay as you go) rules, which would require all new government spending to be matched with increased revenue, wrongly prioritizing the balancing of the budget over the well-being of the public.”
Imagine PAYGO is institutionalized, does this prevent bold social policy? Not at all! Under PAYGO conditions, a Green New Deal and Medicare for All can be financed by a reduction of military spending and higher taxes for the rich. This, of course, is anathema among MMTers. Why? Because MMTers are fake Progressives.
MMT is about permanent deficit spending and this doctrine comes under the headline of Functional Finance. Now, macroeconomics tells one that Public Deficit = Private Profit and from this follows that permanent deficit spending amounts to a permanent free lunch for the one-percenters. The social benefits that can be achieved with deficit spending are paid for in real terms through stealth taxation by the ninety-nine-percenters themselves.
Self-styled MMT Progressives use the Green New Deal and Medicare for All as a pretext for public deficit-spending/money-creation that ultimately benefits the one-percenters. Because they are agenda-pushers for the Oligarchy, MMTers never answer the question How will you pay for it? with cutting military spending and taxes for the rich. The boldness of Progressives ends exactly where the Oligarchy loses its sense of humor.
To pay for social benefits with deficit-spending/money-creation is simply a political fraud.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke