Modern Monetary Theorists: It’s Do or Die

You have a rare chance here… this is like the 4th quarter, and you’re John Elway in 1997 and you’ve never won a Super Bowl, but here you are: it’s go time.

Most people are going to get a check in the next few weeks. It’s going to come from the U.S. Treasury. Most of these people are also going to pay their taxes in July instead of April. A bunch of these people are going to pay their taxes to the Treasury with the money they received from the Treasury.

Are you following me here?

A few people have been not so quietly wondering why anyone pays taxes at all, since it seems like there’s no link between tax receipts and government spending. Now it seems like more people might join those ranks.

Some MMT proponents will calmly reiterate that taxes give money value. Well, maybe. Maybe they give money value as long as people think taxes will have to be paid at some point? After all, we’re suspending tax payments until July, but it’s not like our money will not have value until then.

So, I’ll bite: taxes give money value… not the fact that people trust the currency. And it’s not like any country has ever seen its currency go kaput EVER, because every country accepts its own currency as payment for taxes.

And it’s not like there are monetary goods that have value despite not being accepted as payment for taxes by any government on the planet.