I was just wondering how the US (or any country really) can pull out 100 billion on a given occasion ? Is the treasury just “printing” more money, or are taxes raised? (let’s say 200million Americans are active, that’s still $500 per person) . Or is it just debt passed on to future generations? It goes without saying that I am not fluent in finance

  • partial_accumen
    6•7 months ago

    There are three ways governments obtain money.

    1. Taxes
    2. Borrow Money (issuing government bonds)
    3. Print Money (Called Quantitative Easing in the USA, the last time this was used ended March 9th, 2022)

    Added clarity and more money sources:

    1. Fees charged to domestic individuals and companies (passports, charged interest on unpaid income taxes. etc)
    2. Fees charged to foreign nations or foreign companies. (exim bank fees, tariffs)
    • @[email protected]English
      2•7 months ago

      For 2, If you want to get technical it’s not just bonds. The government also issues Treasury Bills and Notes.

      For 4 and 5, I would classify both of those as “taxes” but they’re such a small amount individually that they get grouped into a giant “Other” bucket in the general summaries the US government puts out about their revenue.