Printing fiat is theft. Borrowing to pay for the fiat is just the logical consequence of a government that can't afford the money it "creates".

Printing money devalues the currency, resulting in inflation, so it really isn't much better than incurring debt.

Either one guarantees an inflationary spiral at some point. At least printing fiat money just causes everything to spiral up with everyone paying. Borrowing by the government enforces the spiral however it has a dampening effect on private sector expansion because now the private sector must compete for whatever capital is available. Government will pay back because of the inflationary tax on the poor unsuspecting, naive taxpayer.

This is the dirty little secret that the Central Banks have and that governments love. Welcome to the wonderful world of Keynesian philosophy......

JFK and Lincoln tried printing without borrowing. Banksters don't like any regime to be out of their control. Debt has been used repeatedly by banksters to conquer recalcitrant regimes.
I don't trust either government or bankers to create legal tender from nothing. Both have proven that their interests do not agree with mine.

I understand the view that just printing money is theft. But one can equally argue that for a corporation to issue more shares is theft. In both cases, the earlier holder knew that it might happen before it did, so I'm not overly sympathetic.

Besides, the national debt is already well above the point that anyone could honestly expect it will ever be paid back. So additional borrowing now just means more names get added to the end of a long list who may someday get an unexpected windfall, but more likely will be left holding the bag when the ability to borrow more runs out. As it must, because the expansion of the debt (and especially Social Security and Medicare which aren't included in the official debt number) makes it a pyramid scheme.

If we were having this conversation back in the Reagan era, it might still be possible to repay the whole debt through such means as auctioning off all the federal land in the West, which ought to be divested anyway for multiple reasons. But now, I don't believe repayment is possible at all, which leaves the choices of inflate it away, or repudiate it as Cuba did. Of those two, I'd rather inflate. That way the last lenders at least get something. (Besides which, the 14th Amendment, Section 4 appears to forbid repudiating.)

different sides of the same counterfeit coin....

Actually, the two go hand in hand. Printing money reduces the value of the dollar and borrowing at the current dollar value and paying it back with future dollars of lesser worth is effectively an engineered discount. Only the government can get away with this kind of fraud. It's grand larceny pure and simple.

The problem with "money" stems from the Constitution which decreed that GOVERNment was given total control and decreed that any other money was "illegal'.

Nothing new, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

Printing money while a needed vise of gov't is one that is easily corrupted; case in point the Weimar Republic printed 'unbacked' paper causing the Depression, 'Great Depression' in America due to FDR's attempt to spend borrowed money to get out of it.

Any unbacked money, which U.S.A. is not actually printing, is very bad for society and the economy. The U.S. has backing of its money; it is called the 'sweat equity' of its citizens and it is about used up after Obama's reign.

What would be best is a solid asset back monetary system, such as we had pre-1972.
But, we cannot get that with the current makeup of our gov't; Senate and Congress both are elected by the populous and this means they try to 'buy' their seats with 'pork'.

We would need to repeal the 17th Amendment and give the power of the Senate back to the States. Then we would have to shrink the federal gov't and drastically cut fed level spending; some people will die due to it. We cannot afford to pay for those that DO NOT WANT TO WORK OR FOR THEIR FINANCIAL MISTAKES.

We as well have to secure the borders and all entry points. Once we rein in our debt we could go back to a securely backed monetary system.

So, in closing I am for the gov't 'printing' money; but only securely back money.

The government certainly would have the right to create its own money for its own purposes. It also would have the right to borrow money.

It is true that the government might choose not to do either of those. In 1800 and 1802 radical Republicans in the Senate sought to close the US Mint as being an unnecessary public expense. The Spanish Dollar was plentiful and could have served as the common currency. In fact, the Spanish Dollar and then the Mexican Peso were legal tender -- as were several other foreign gold and silver coins -- until 1857.

Businesses do not just borrow money when they are short of cash. Many large corporations borrow short-term (24 hours, for instance) to make payrolls. The reason is that their cash on hand is worth more than the cost of borrowing.

The same applies to the government, of course.

Government printing money is no different from Bender "dinging" Moe Cieslak's cash register.

Printing it is a phantom tax. So, that would get my vote.

I am not sure that under an Objectivist government it would never borrow money. An O government could not print money, as legal tender laws are not consistent with Objectivism.

I am still learning about government debt and finance relative to economies. I have learned that we should have a productivity based economy and not a debt based economy and that a fiat economy is not good. The amount of currency in days gone by were based on gold reserves which in effect would be a productivity based system. The money that should be printed ought to be based on the amount of resources produced and in the economy. Printing money based on the country's GDP seems to make sense.

Inflation == the hidden tax that affects everyone, especially those on fixed income... Printing money (without adding any value) creates inflation. Paying off debt with or without interest considered reduces funds for other needs, Health and welfare, military/defense, infrastructure, etc. Which is worse (printing money or borrowing money)? They are both unacceptable. "The problem isn't that we don't have enough money. The problem is that government spends too much." Ronald Reagan. Our solution for the day: stop spending more than you take in. Period.

Neither is desirable, but borrowing is probably preferential to printing because market forces will somewhat auto-correct governmental spending - at some point the cost of borrowing exceeds the government's ability to pay and presumably some sanity would return.

During a major calamity, such as 2008, that may not be an option, there may be no one willing to lend. In the case of the US, we can print money and people will still value the currency highly because of its status as the de facto reserve currency for the world. Other nations don't really have that option with skyrocketing their inflation, so results may vary.

Ultimately in the US, we tend to not go to far down one path or the other over time. If you look at the long horizon of US history, we generally vacillate between the left and the right. We over-corrected with the democrats in the last cycle and Trump was elected. My gut feeling is that he will ultimately be a fiscally conservative person with some moderate leanings on social issues and we may find a sweet spot there for a while.

I'm backing up that statement by the left's absolute beyond-belief reaction to his election. They are scared shitless (I think) that the economy will get back on track, people will go back to work, taxes are going to go way down, and revenues will go way up by getting dependent masses of people off the government's monthly liabilities list. The country longs for the Reagan years, Trump may be the first one to have come along since Reagan that doesn't owe favors to everyone under the moon.

If the left sincerely thought he would fail in cataclysmic fashion, they would just be setting up people on the bench for a 2020 run. Instead, Hillary is eyeballing the New York City Mayor's race, Kane has disappeared to the Island of Misfit Toys he was on before she plucked him out of it, and Lurch (John Kerry) gives a completely incomprehensibly stupid narrative of the Obama years miscategorizing and misrepresenting the "good" parts of the Obama years and completely omitting the failures, and Holder appears to be now in the political consulting & whoring business. I don't think they will even mount a defense in 2020 and they know it.

In printing money, the government devalues money in proportion to each person's wealth. In borrowing, the government devalues each person's wealth in proportion to the taxes they pay.