I am intrigued by the limits to printing money de novo --- instead of borrowing money that has to be repaid to creditors and that adds to the national debt.
Thought experiment 1: the case of no limits to printing money: Suppose all taxes are abolished and government pays all its bills with printed money (i.e. pays government workers; pays contractors (like defense, infrastructure); subsidies to low income people, etc. etc.) Very soon we will have too much demand -- too much money chasing too few goods, and rampant inflation, unless supply can be expanded as fast as demand. Problem: some of the inputs necessary for increasing supply -- like water, raw materials -- are finite, unless scientists can very quickly find good substitutes. Problem: land, physical land, is finite, and a huge increase in money supply will hugely bid up the price of land and the price of housing, so unless there are rigid price controls on land, this will be a giant source of giant inflation.
Thought experiment 2: judicious printing of money (de novo): There is insufficient demand in the economy. Government boosts citizen’s incomes just enough to take up the slack, by — every week — sending every adult citizen a check, stimulating demand. Tell me, what is wrong with this idea ?
=========================================================
SUBSIDIARY NOTES:
Rather than send a check, electronically deposit to a special bank account, non-raidable by creditors, would be technically easy to do, and quite inexpensive, made possible by modern information technology, not available before.
As a progressive I would want to scale payments inversely to income. But this might engender too much political drag.