The truth is that we don’t need MMT or Richard Murphy to debunk the tax myth: simple logic does the job. Economist Mike Norman illustrates this succinctly, using the following phrase: “You can’t drain a swimming pool until you fill it up first.” In other words, citizens can’t pay their taxes unless the money has been spent into the private sector in the first place. Where does that money come from? It comes from the US Government, the monopoly issuer of the US dollar. So, unless you can argue that taxes can be paid in something other than the state currency (“I’ve decided to pay my taxes using my collection of superhero figures”) or that the US dollar is issued by some other entity than the US Government (“my neighbour makes dollars in his basement”), we can't say that taxes pay for government spending.