[adventureful]

Our government can print, the Treasury has the legal ability to do so at any time. The Federal Reserve however owns the Federal Reserve Notes (aka the 'dollar'), and they own the US Government accordingly.

Our government would both print and tax, as many other governments throughout history with an abusive printing press have done. Just because a government has a printing press, they never stop taxing.

Governments print and tax because they can, it slows down the rate of inflationary pressure that printing would generate if that's all you did. As it is, they like to keep inflation hidden as much as possible by keeping it moderately low so you don't notice it year to year. The whole point is to boil the frog without the frog jumping out of the pot.