Wonking Out: Biden Should Ignore the Debt Limit and Mint a $1 Trillion Coin

It’s hard to believe now, but before Donald Trump became the G.O.P.’s presidential nominee in 2016, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was widely seen as a champion of the “reformicons” — conservatives who wanted the Republican Party to become more moderate and flexible, to move beyond its obsessive focus on cutting taxes for the rich and slashing benefits for the poor. Since then, however, Rubio has become a pathetic figure — not just a Trump toady, but someone who routinely tweets out stuff like this: “The $3.5 trillion Biden plan isn’t socialism, it’s Marxism.”

Indeed, we all remember the stirring passage in The Communist Manifesto where Marx declared, “Workers of the world, unite to spend 1.2 percent of G.D.P. on popular programs over the next decade!”