[mosburger]

I'm not even close to an expert on economics, either... but I think what you're describing sounds similar to what's called "Modern Monetary Theory" or MMT.

If I understand the very basic gist of MMT correctly, it's basically that the government "invents" currency simply by spending. If the government wants to finance, e.g., an enormous infrastructure project, all it has to do is will it into existence and the money will get printed - mostly because the full faith in credit of the United States Treasury will make sure the right people are paid.

If this is true, what then is the point of taxes? Taxes are a buffer to "sop up" excess cash in the economy to keep inflation under control.

Another central tenet of MMT is that the end goal of tuning these knobs should be 0% unemployment, because that's when your economy is producing maximally.

I'm sure I got a lot of that wrong, because (like I said) I'm not an expert, but what you described reminded me of the MMT Wikipedia rabbithole I ended up in a few years back.

[eru]

Yes, you described MMT about right.

Unfortunately, MMT is either a meaningless tautology that doesn't change anything about our understanding of the world. Or, it's wrong. Depending on what definition the MMT people use at any one point in time during a discussion.