If the government can print money, why doesn't it just print money and hand it out? Economics Prof. Antony Davies explains that understanding why money was invented can explain why it is not useful for the government to print money to give away.
Increasing the amount of money available for goods and services will only increase prices: this is inflation. If everyone has twice as much money but everything costs twice as much as before, are people better off? Having government print money will not increase wealth. Source
At the rate the federal government spends, it runs out of money on July 31. What programs should be cut to balance the budget and fund the government for the remaining five months of the year? Cutting NASA might buy two days; cutting the Navy could buy fifteen. It seems that balancing the budget may require more than just cutting government programs. What should be done? Source
Additional:
Increasing the amount of money available for goods and services will only increase prices: this is inflation. If everyone has twice as much money but everything costs twice as much as before, are people better off? Having government print money will not increase wealth. Source
Additional:
In her masterpiece of fiction, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand emphasizes three key classical liberal themes: individualism, suspicion of centralized power, and the importance of free markets. In this video, Prof. Jennifer Burns shows how Rand's plot and characters demonstrate these themes, principally through innovative entrepreneurs who are stifled by laws and regulations instituted by their competitors. In the world of Atlas Shrugged, free markets and individual liberty have been traded away for equality and security enforced by the government. Burns ends by reviving Rand's critical question: do you want to live in this kind of world?
Jennifer Burns is an assistant professor of history at the University of Virginia and author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right.