Modern Monetary Theory’s central claim is that a government with a printing press is never budget constrained — so the only real limit on spending is inflation, not debt. Jonathan Newman takes MMT on in its own words, working through clips of MMT proponents making their case before responding. He shows why “their deficit is your surplus” collapses once you ask how debt service is financed, why the WWII economy MMT holds up as a model was a depression for private citizens once government spending is stripped from GDP, and—drawing on his chapter in a forthcoming Mises Institute book—why the archaeological record of ancient Mesopotamia flatly contradicts MMT’s account of where money came from.

Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on July 23, 2026.

Mises University is the world’s leading instructional program in the Austrian School of economics, and is the essential training ground for economists who are looking beyond the mainstream.