Our government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars supporting Canadians through this pandemic. They're deep in debt—but how worried should they be? Traditional economic policy would have the Liberals reign in spending and make some cuts as soon as they can to try to mitigate the damage. Otherwise we might find ourselves hit by massive inflation. A newer economic theory, however, would urge the government to spend as much as needed as long as Canadians are struggling and simply print money as necessary to pay for it.

OK, that's a simplification of modern monetary theory, but it gets at the basic point. Maybe we don't need to worry about how much debt we rack up?

GUEST: Max Fawcett, The Walrus

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