Coronavirus has destroyed the myth of the deficit | Yeva Nersisyan and L Randall Wray

No, federal government spending doesn't have to be 'paid for'. The crisis shows providing for our society is not a financial issue

Only a month ago, a stimulus bill of $2tn would have been unthinkable. Indignant deficit scolds would have asked how one planned to pay for it, and complained about burdening our grandchildren with debt and bankrupting our country. Bernie Sanders bent over backwards to explain how he was going to pay for a Green New Deal or Medicare for All. These programs don't seem as expensive any more. Suddenly the government is planning "helicopter drops" of cash. Larry Kudlow, who relentlessly attacked the Obama stimulus during the global financial crisis, is touting the current stimulus as "the single largest Main Street assistance program in the history of the United States".

Related: Not even Wall Street titans know the true cost of the coronavirus crisis

Once this crisis passes, the deficit scolds will be back at it, trying to put roadblocks in front of progressive policies

Related: How coronavirus almost brought down the global financial system | Adam Tooze

Yeva Nersisyan is associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College

L Randall Wray, author of Modern Money Theory: A Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems; Why Minsky Matters: An Introduction to the Work of a Maverick Economist; and Understanding Modern Money: The Key to Full Employment and Price Stability, is senior scholar at the Levy Economics Institute and professor of economics at Bard College