Taking It To The Streets: OUR MONEY Campaign Launches To Mainstream Modern Monetary Theory
WASHINGTON, May 13, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today marks the official launch of the Our Money Campaign, an issue-based advocacy campaign that seeks to mainstream the academic insights of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to solve some of our nation's greatest social and economic challenges. According to campaign Founder and Organizer Rev. Delman Coates, "We seek to build a diverse, grassroots, bi-partisan movement that endeavors to address poverty, wealth concentration, unemployment, affordable housing, health care, public education, the climate crisis, and household debt. We recognize in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), a credible, highly impressive, and genuinely public-spirited alternative to the disastrous economic stewardship offered by the old guard of the economics profession that brought us the Great Recession and continues to prioritize the private interests of the financial sector over the public good. We want to help ensure that the debate reaches the broader public through outreach and organizing rather than being confined to the Academy, the financial press, and op-ed pages. It is my earnest belief that if we change the way we think about money, we can change the world."
Our Money aims to educate citizens, civic leaders, clergy, activists, and policymakers about the power of money creation to unleash the untapped potential of our economy. Spencer Veale, Policy Director of Our Money, states "For too long, we have worked within a framework of economic assumptions that obscures the full extent of our government's capacity to attend to public priorities. By underestimating our nation's capacity for responsible money creation, we have promoted an over-reliance on private credit to furnish the economy with the money we need. By increasing money creation through public spending, we can better attend to public priorities and reduce our reliance on private credit."
Our Money contends that the federal government does not face the same fiscal constraints as a household or business when it comes to spending. Says Veale, "The federal government is not like a household in that it has the power to create money. Therefore, it doesn't really need to generate revenue through taxation or borrowing in order to spend. The real constraints on spending are the availability of real resources and the need to maintain price stability. This insight challenges us to shift the way we think about fiscal policy, making 'how are we going to pay for it?' an obsolete question in the context of federal spending." Several economists, activists, researchers, and scholars have signed on to support Our Money, including: Nina Banks, Andres Bernal, Fran Boait, Raúl Carrillo, William A. Darity, Rohan Grey, Derrick Hamilton, Robert Hockett, Michael Hudson, Brett Scott, Shawn Sebastian, Williams Spriggs, and Nathan Tankus.
"We need an economy that works for us, and not against us," says Tomeka Scales, Ph.D., Program Director of Our Money. "While the financial sector seems to be doing well, too many Americans are struggling under the weight of stagnant wages, excessive private debt, and often unnecessarily high tax burdens. As a nation, we can do better, and Our Money seeks to expand the public debate so that we can have a sustainable economy that works for everyone."
The campaign will host a free roundtable open to the public on Saturday, May 18, 2019 designed to impart the theoretical framing for supporting proposals such as a Federal Jobs Guarantee, the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and Free Public College. Saturday's session will start at 9:30AM at Mt. Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, MD. Registration can be found at: http://bit.ly/OMmay18.
Find Us: Website: www.ourmoneyus.org
FB, Instagram, & Twitter: @ourmoneyus
Stay informed: www.ourmoneyus.org/signup
Contact: Tomeka B. Scales, Ph.D.
Email: [email protected]
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