Friday, February 8, 2019

John T. Harvey — The Green New Deal: Would It Turn Brown And Die For Lack Of Funding?

To reiterate, we didn’t need people’s money to fund the war effort. And in case you don’t believe me, take the word of someone who was there. Beardsley Ruml, Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, published a piece in American Affairs in 1946 entitled “Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete.”
Guess what he says!
John Harvey might also have pointed out that this how the US government self-funds the military now, and everything else it spends money on, including Social Security. FDR knew this at the time but tied SS to a tax to make it look like "insurance" rather than welfare in order to head off attacks on the programs as a "give-away" (transfer).

As Alan Greenspan testified to Congress, the only constraint on government spending is the availability of real resources in the present and future. There is no financial constraint regarding funding, although inflation can result from generating effective demand in excess of the ability to expand supply to meet it in a timely fashion.

Forbes — Pragmatic Economics
The Green New Deal: Would It Turn Brown And Die For Lack Of Funding?
John T. Harvey | Professor of Economics, Texas Christian University

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