Our government can — and should — spend all we need to spend on the things “We the People” need and want, so long as we have the time, materials and human resources to produce them. (However, we need to be wary of inflation and corruption.)
The national conversation should be about our spending priorities, not arbitrary spending limits.
Academics and economists describe how this works. They call their description “Modern Monetary Theory” (MMT), but these can get complicated and can seem counterintuitive. This site tries to bridge the gap between the complicated descriptions and what the public needs to know.
For a brief introduction and explanation of MMT, read Congress can give every American a pony (if it breeds enough ponies), by Stephanie Kelton, in the LA Times, 9/29/2017. From her op-ed:
“What if it turned out that the government really could give everyone a pony — and a chicken and car? That is, so long as we could breed enough ponies and chickens and manufacture enough cars. The cars and the food have to come from somewhere; the money is conjured out of thin air, more or less.
Let me explain.
[. . .]
Whoa, cowboy! Are you telling me that the government can just make money appear out of nowhere, like magic? Absolutely. Congress has special powers: It’s the patent-holder on the U.S. dollar. No one else is legally allowed to create it. This means that Congress can always afford the pony because it can always create the money to pay for it.”