Finding the Money

What if the most prominent debate in politics is based on a myth? When any politician proposes a new spending priority, the number one question inevitably asked is: “How will you pay for it? Where will you find the money?”

Stephanie Kelton says this is the wrong question to be asking a sovereign government that issues its own currency. And this question prevents real debate about the most urgent challenges facing humanity today: a healthcare crisis, climate crisis, and economic crisis. She says, “Finding the Money is the easiest part.”

Kelton embarks on a challenge to turn everything we think we know about money, debt, and taxes upside down.

FINDING THE MONEY captures the historic rise of Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT, one of the biggest theoretical shifts to hit politics and economics in decades. How can we pay for expensive new proposals like Medicare for All or a Green New Deal? Kelton states, the the same way Congress pays for everything: it votes to fund the spending. Instead of asking ‘how will you pay for it?’ we should be asking ‘how will you resource it?’ This debate has the potential to change everything about federal policy from the health of our pocketbooks, to the health of the planet.