How banks lend money isn’t controversial. How governments spend and collect money isn’t controversial. Those are just points of fact. The controversial part is the government being able to spend before it has tax levels which “support” the spending. That’s what I meant. MMT says that’s an available choice. That’s all.

Many mainstream economists will say that unchecked spending is reckless and you risk hyperinflation. Now we’re in to policy choices though. Regardless, if you spend without worrying about the other side of the equation (tax) they’d be right. However, that’s a strawman argument because that’s not what is being said.

I’ll be honest, I’ve yet to hear a convincing argument against MMT, and I’ve looked. I started off sceptical, but I now think it’s a useful framing tool. Every counter I’ve seen doesn’t address what it actually states, rather what they imagine it states (normally unchecked spending). If anyone has seen a good factual argument against MMT I’d be interested.