We are all MMTers (Still)

Stimulus is being debated everywhere, but only about what it's supposedly for. The deficit and debt have vanished from the conversation entirely. Neither party mentions them. Neither side defends them. The silence itself reveals that something fundamental about how we talk about government spending has shifted.

• Political actors across the spectrum have stopped defending fiscal discipline. Tax cuts exploded the deficit years ago with barely a mention. Stimulus packages face constant debate about their purpose and recipients, yet nobody questions whether a currency-printing government can afford them. The position itself has become untenable.

• The messaging around stimulus is completely fragmented. Media coverage splits into isolated narratives about families, small businesses, financial markets, and the unemployed. Yet these separate conversations share one thing in common: none of them invoke the language of limits, tradeoffs, or constraints.

• Deficit talk isn't just less common. It's structurally absent. Network analysis of stimulus coverage shows massive narrative disagreement on nearly everything—except what doesn't appear at all. The deficit and debt exist outside the conversation, not as minor subplots but as absent categories.

• This wasn't a coordinated shift or a reasoned argument. There was no debate that changed minds. Politicians simply abandoned old positions without explanation or defense, and nobody called the inconsistency out. Consistency itself has become a liability in politics.

• What gets accepted now as economic reality will determine what remains politically possible for the next decade.If currency-printing governments are understood to face no fiscal limits, the only question becomes what to spend on. The framework itself is the prize.