I have a friend who describes himself as a fiscal conservative and socially progressive. I am mentoring him to realize that fiscal conservatives often do not actually understand sovereign money creation nor take basic accounting principles into account. And are usually unfamiliar with MMT.

According to the latter, government debts are private sector assets. Government deficits are private sector surpluses (profits?) and budgets should be used to balance the economy for people not money-lenders and corporations. Jettison the notions of balanced budgets which are code words for austerity budgets.

The first governor of the Bank of Canada, Graham Towers, testified before parliament at finance committee hearings examining the impact WWII expenditures were having on the debt and said that government debts were assets not just liabilities. They are NOT a burden on future generations because if they were to be paid off in the future, future generations would receive the value.

One of the MPs of the day then promoted making government debts assets for the people instead of corporations and money-lenders.

If people vote because they are ONLY looking at the liability side of the books and ignoring the asset side, will thinking about it in this more complete way alter their voting? It has direct relevance to AOC’s New Green Deal.