Finding the Money

Does the national debt matter? 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 global pandemic, 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 a controversial new economic theory dubbed Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT. It could represent one of the biggest theoretical shifts to hit politics and economics in decades. Kelton states, contrary to popular opinion, the federal government is not like a household, taxes don’t pay for spending, and the national debt is not leaving a burden for our children or grandchildren to pay back.

Met with seemingly endless criticism, we follow this once fringe group of economists through the stages from professional exile, to ridicule, to heated conflict in the political arena, and finally a possible “win”. Will they succeed in generating a paradigm shift?