https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
I don’t see us cutting back spending any time soon, so it doesn’t seem crazy to me that we inflate our way out of this, especially since after this pandemic a lot of countries are in a similar situation, making inflation more politically viable
Have a look at Japan:
* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DEBTTLJPA188A
Japan's inflation:
* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGJPN
There was only one published paper that I'm aware that had any debt-GDP-inflation link (Reinhart-Rogoff) and it was retracted:
https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Free_Resources/Federal-Inco...
With a 50-50 Senate split and Manchin committed to bipartisanship, I don't see much chance of successfully passing significant tax increases.
> The Laffer Curve — the idea that tax cuts can sometimes increase tax revenue — is one of the most influential and widely debated ideas in the past two generations of American politics. Beloved by the right and despised by the left, one thing that both sides have tended to agree on is that knowing what side of the curve we're on should be a key driver of tax policy.
> But in an era of surging inequality, it's time to revisit that assumption. Maybe at least some taxes should be really high. Maybe even really really high. So high as to useless for revenue-raising purposes — but powerful for achieving other ends.
> We already accept this principle for tobacco taxes. If all we wanted to do was raise revenue, we might want to slightly cut cigarette taxes. And since cigarettes are about the most-taxed thing in America, we certainly would want to cut out all our other anti-smoking initiatives. But we don't do that because we care about public health. We tax tobacco not to [primarily] make money but to discourage smoking.
* https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5620702/case-for-confiscatory-...
Since wealthy people hold more of their wealth in assets, this insulates them from inflation more than those who hold their wealth in savings or who live paycheck to paycheck and see their cost of living increase.
On paper it does reduce the burden of certain debts, but people on the lower socioeconomic end of the spectrum are often already paying debts at much higher or variable interest rates.
While inflation with low interest rates might increase the value of assets - inflation that leads to higher interest rates might actually do the opposite. So it ends up being a choice of the central bank which way to push this thing (although there is a lean towards keeping interest rates lower for longer because of the size of the U.S. government debt interest payments)