How does MMT propose to do this? Perhaps in due course by raising taxes, though MMTers have mixed feelings about this (to acknowledge the need for tax increases is to suggest that not everything can be afforded). Maybe with direct controls on prices, wages, profits and credit. Perhaps by examining spending minutely, program by program, favoring outlays that mitigate inflationary pressure (say by boosting labor supply) and avoiding those that worsen it (for instance by adding to demand in overstretched sectors).
This is a tall order for a Congress that generally struggles to do anything, never mind execute a demanding new fiscal policy with foresight and technocratic exactitude.
Mainstream economists have long advocated a division of labor between fiscal policy (subject to swirling political pressures, biased by short-term calculation toward inflationary excess) and monetary policy (delegated to independent central banks, charged with anchoring expected inflation). They had reason to. In removing the Fed from the picture, MMT ignores lessons learned over the course of decades.
One more thing: MMTers are right to say they’re proposing a radical change of regime. MMT neuters the institution tasked with controlling inflation, demands unimaginable levels of wisdom and competence in Congress, advocates more government spending, minimizes the costs of inflation, and views talk of fiscal discipline as gibberish.
If MMTers were ever put in charge, inflation expectations would surge before they even made a single policy announcement. Thus the only constraint on spending they acknowledge would tighten at once, throttling their ambitions and hobbling their program at the outset.
But, as I say, their ideas are really interesting.
Clive Crook is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and writes editorials on economics, finance and politics. He was chief Washington commentator for the Financial Times, a correspondent and editor for the Economist and a senior editor at the Atlantic.