TO SUMMARISE:
Government spending, like all spending, is limited by inflation, which in turn is governed by the amount of real resources that can be sustainably put to productive use – creating output and then consumption (Mitchell et al 2019, p. 520).
As ecological economists, however, we particularly emphasise that this ‘throughput’ should be scientifically assessed and kept within sustainable ecological limits, and ideally well within those limits, to avoid uneconomic growth (Daly 2014).