We may have already "run out of money"

By 4pm EDT today we will see if the U.S. government has already "run out of money."

Now all good MMTers know this is not possible because the government is the monopoly issuer of the currency and can spend whatever it wants by simply electronically crediting bank accounts.

However, a self-imposed constraint on that ability was put in place by Congress in 1917. It's called the statutory debt limit.

And we all know what that is.

Congress has so far not raised this limit even though it has never failed to lift it in the past.

As of Monday, May 2, the government had only $26 billion in spending power left. That may have already ran out, which would mean that technically, the government is "out of money."


Only $26 bln of spending power left! (figures in millions $)

The reason this is so assinine is because we are doing this to ourselves. And that choice could throw the entire world's financial system into chaos. It's the equivalent of commiting suicide when you have lots and lots of dependents. Who suffers?

All the Republicans in Congress and many "fiscally conservative" Democrats will bear the responsibility for whatever chaos comes from this.

These people are like "true believers," but their beliefs are based in ignorance and myth. Just like a religious cult that would deny medicine to a sick child whose life could be saved with the proper vaccine, their religious beliefs preclude this so the child dies...and the parents deem that proper and as it should be. Maybe a better example would be the fanatics who strap bombs on themselves and blow up innocents, all in the name of their cause.

This is what it has come to here in America: Ignorance over knowledge, belief over truth, privation over abundance.