Tom Mann & Nick Ornstein Finally Admit MMT is Right ... but Claim They Knew it All Along

This is progress.  Let's hope it's for the right reasons, not just a desperate attempt to maintain ill-gotten policy influence.

Of course, the authors might not retain their present positions at the Brookings Inst. & American Enterprise Inst. if they also stooped to acknowledge those that have been - against overwhelming orthodox opposition - documenting this for decades, if not centuries. Say, at least:

Ben Franklin,
Abe Lincoln,
William Jennings Bryan,
Marriner Eccles,
William Vickrey,
Wynne Godley,
Warren Mosler,
Randy Wray,
Bill Mitchell
Rodger Mitchell

 ... and their growing list of students?

Successfully co-opted, plagiarism makes timely policy for Control Frauds, under the guise of "of course, everyone knows this", although we fervently denied it right up until we noted that everyone else was relearning a message we could no longer help suppress.

You have to laugh while wondering what "basic economic theory" they're talking about below.   Edward Bernays' version, perhaps?

[Political Myth #3] A balanced-budget amendment can fix the economy

Another hardy perennial is the notion that a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget would end Washington’s rapacious habits and force politicians to make tough fiscal decisions. After all, 49 states have such an amendment in their constitutions, so why not Washington?

In fact, the states’ balanced budgets are the best reason to avoid one at the federal level. When a downturn occurs, basic economic theory tells us that we need “counter-cyclical” policies to inject adrenaline into a fatigued economy — meaning more government spending and/or lower taxes. States do the opposite: A downturn means less revenue and more demands from unemployed residents, so they cut spending and raise taxes to preserve their balanced budgets. The fiscal drag from states in the recent Great Recession amounted to $800 billion, which the Obama administration’s stimulus plan barely offset. A federal balanced-budget amendment would only have aggravated the downturn — the economic equivalent of bleeding an anemic patient.

The latest House Republican proposals for a balanced-budget amendment would limit spending to 19.9 percent of gross domestic product and make any tax increases contingent on a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers of Congress. Because federal revenue is now at barely more than 15 percent of GDP and spending is at 24 percent, balancing the budget under these conditions would essentially eliminate all of the government other than the big entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare — or would require cutting those programs severely.

Maintaining fiscal flexibility is critical in the American political system, particularly in a globalized economy where less and less of our destiny is under our control. And the experience of the 1990s demonstrates that the White House and Congress together can take the steps needed to balance the budget under existing rules.