Would it be better if no one sends money to the government and instead the government prints what it needs? The budgeting figures would show total money printed and from that, economists and lawmakers can discuss it’s affect.
I’m sure this has been discussed before, but I’d like your input. Also, any links of such discussions would be appreciated.
The government would never adopt a policy. Ignoring the hyperinflation the would result within days it would make no sense from the point of the view of the state since people are forced to hold dollars because of taxes. Get rid of taxes and nobody would have any incentive to hold them, with hyperinflation made worse by people getting rid of the dollars the government wouldn’t even be able to spend the money it prints.
Government only prints money to make up for the money they can’t get by taxation. The public wouldn’t pay the huge sums they do now if it was entirely in the form of taxes, so the goverment prints what it can’t tax.
That’s exactly what the state of California intends to do by printing IOUs to pay its suppliers. The only question is, what suppliers are going to accept IOUs as payment?
The state’s super? Seems to work for those guys in the apartments a few blocks away.
See Web of Debt for a discussion of scrip currency in the Pennsylvania colony. Government
there printed fiat and loaned it to people to buy real assets at low interest. Interest on the
loans was sufficient to fund the government without any taxes.
The problem today is that the power to create money ‘out of thin air’ has been ceded to private
bankers who keep the interest as an unjust profit. the current financial crisis could be solved by
Congress reasserting its power to print debt free money.