Remember, the government is the issuer of the currency. They don’t need to collect dollars in order to spend them.
Imagine a referee removing a point from a participant.
The point doesn’t go anywhere, waiting to be reused, it just gets deleted. The next point to get added isn’t the “same point” in any sense, even though the point total is the same and maybe even some physical point token got reused.
Conceptually, sovereign currency is always on a one-way trip from being spent into existence to being taxed into annihilation.
“They don’t need to collect dollars in order to spend them” does not mean “They ought to spend dollars and not collect them”.
I’m only describing that collecting X amount from tariffs does not imply that spending must necessarily increase by X somewhere due to some kind of conservation of dollars that the OP seemed to assume.
No one.
Remember, the government is the issuer of the currency. They don’t need to collect dollars in order to spend them.
Imagine a referee removing a point from a participant.
The point doesn’t go anywhere, waiting to be reused, it just gets deleted. The next point to get added isn’t the “same point” in any sense, even though the point total is the same and maybe even some physical point token got reused.
Conceptually, sovereign currency is always on a one-way trip from being spent into existence to being taxed into annihilation.
This is an inaccurate metaphor because the referee doesn’t normally earn points but governments absolutely spend money.
The money is collected by the government and funds budgets.
Yup, that worked a treat in Zimbabwe.
“They don’t need to collect dollars in order to spend them” does not mean “They ought to spend dollars and not collect them”.
I’m only describing that collecting X amount from tariffs does not imply that spending must necessarily increase by X somewhere due to some kind of conservation of dollars that the OP seemed to assume.