Doug's informative interview with Robert Pollin included a brief discussion of "printing money" in relation to Modern Monetary Theory, MMT. The familiar MMT names Stephanie Kelton (Bernie Sanders advisor) and Randy Wray were mentioned. My understanding is that these individuals support "printing money" in the form of monetized Treasury debt from the Federal Reserve, the interest for which can be paid by the FR itself and returned to the U.S. Treasury. Of course, while money can be "printed" or created with keystrokes out of thin air, as it is when banks make loans, it can't be printed simply as one pleases. Pollin is correct to disavow the notion that a currency fix can address our fundamental issues. Nevertheless, he did tentatively suggest that money can indeed be reasonably printed to account for 20% of government spending. He didn't specify whether he meant only federal, but let's include state and local. So that would be 20% of $5 trillion, $1 trillion. So a serious ambitious proposal would be to print $1 trillion for education from daycare through college. That could be passed to state and district levels, relieving the regressive tax systems, including property tax, at those levels, and enforcing equity. That amount should more than cover a system that could, for example, pay daycare workers a living wage, and hire adjunct faculty instructors for decent fulltime jobs. That would be a serious proposal for Hillary Clinton to make, beyond the daycare proposal that Heather Boushey (CEPR, mentioned in the interview) is advising HRC about. But what will likely happen is that the daycare proposal will stand alone, be passed in minimal crumb form if at all, and be called an HRC victory for women and children. And of course Wall Street won't mind a bit. I would suggest that Pollin's view of HRC's economic program as expressed on BTN is rather charitable and punch pulling, and the distance between either an MMT vision or his own vision for environmental spending is quite understated. Beyond that, I would note that in thinking about "printing money," I don't see how you can do that without devaluing the overvalued dollar. It matters whether printed money is ultimately spent and circulated on putting Americans to work, or flies out of the country; that seems crucial to the seriousness and practically of such proposals. David Green