Friedman was a brilliant fool. He was absolutely right to predict crypto and its negative consequences. But the idea that taxes, which are essential to every citizen having a stake in where government money is spent, should be easier to evade - the honest way of saying "harder to collect" - is just foolishness.

MMT says that inflation is the only constraint on printing money. That clain is completely consistent with Friedman's claim that inflation is a monetary phenomenon. MMTers argue that a balanced budget often permits far less useful spending (infrastructure repair, anyone?) than an inflation constraint. The only problem is that there is no canary in the inflationary coal mine; it is possible to print too much money before the lagging indicator of inflation shows up. The challenge is to find the right leading indicators of how much government debt is too much. Sadly, that goal is easier to state than achieve. Some people do cite MMT as an excuse for profligate spending, but that's on them. The theory does not support their claims.