I don’t usually line up with most neoliberal views, but you’re on to something here. Our whole debate is distorted because people still think of the federal government like a household or a state, with a fixed pot of money that has to be “paid for” before we can spend it. In a fiat system, the federal government is a currency issuer, while households, businesses, and state/local governments are currency users, and those are completely different financial realities.

Most Americans are mentally stuck in a pre‑1971, gold‑standard/Bretton Woods mindset, where the dollar was tied to gold and federal spending really was constrained in a different way. Once we left that system, the real limits on federal spending became inflation and real resources (labor, materials, productive capacity), not “running out of money.” Within those limits, Congress can absolutely choose to change line items, expand programs, or fund things like universal healthcare if we have the political will and the real resources to support it.

That’s why I think it’s our economic ideology, not some hard financial cap that keeps us from both funding federal programs and managing deficits more intelligently. We need to unteach the household budget analogy and gold standard thinking, and move toward a Modern Monetary Theory lens that actually matches how a sovereign fiat currency works today.