Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Since When Does Government Have a Money Tree?

Don’t believe the assurances that higher taxes and low-interest debt servicing will contain the costs.

April 13, 2021 at 12:30 PM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

Magic, maybe, but no money.
Photographer: Al Drago/Getty Images North America

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Someone, at some point, needs to pay for government spending.

Just because some politicians and advocates assume there’s a money tree for this purpose doesn’t make it so. Nor is it helpful for either side in the debate to talk in generalities, whether with reassurances that “the rich will pay,” on one hand, or with vague warnings that “higher taxes and larger deficits hurt the economy,” on the other.