A Feminist Economist Speaks Out: Deficits are a Grrrl’s Best Friend

Article here. Excerpt:

'Listen up, sisters! Deficit hawks will eat your lunch, your kids, your jobs and your retirement. An economy without a deficit is like a fish without water. Reducing the U.S. federal deficit will make unemployment and poverty worse–way worse. And that means that women’s economic condition will deteriorate even further. Today’s deficit hawks (and way too many Democrats are flying with this flock), fundamentally and deliberately misinform by insisting on a fictional symmetry between private sector (household and corporate) bookkeeping and the U.S. federal debt.
...
The mantra that “the budget must be balanced” is a throwback to the 19th century, originating from the same outmoded economic thinking that justifies women’s lower wages.

Here are the facts: U.S. government borrowing creates interest-bearing assets. The bonds are bought with dollars, the interest on them is paid in dollars and, at maturity, the bonds are paid off in dollars. Since the U.S. government is both sovereign in its own currency and the sole issuer of dollars, it can never run out of them. How could it?

Don’t think printing presses here: Federal debts are paid off by Treasury clerks making a few clicks on computer keyboards—keyboards identical to the one I’m typing on now.'