It's a very meaningful difference, because these two things (spending and taxing) aren't actually related

Think of it like watering a plant. Watering is spending, and taxation is drainage. What actually matters is how wet the soil is

Our problem isn't the spending, it's that the drainage is bad. We have too much stagnant money. No amount of watering or not watering could fix that... The plant still needs water, even as mold in the bottom of the pot hurts the plant

Generally, taxes are drainage. As money moves around, a little bit drains out of the system at each step

Tarrifs aren't drainage, they're flow restrictiors. They reduce the amount of money moving around, which doesn't help the situation

It's not a perfect metaphor, but to strip it all away - the problem is that billionaires and speculation are collecting money in massive hoards, and the velocity of the money is zero

The actual health of an economy is the velocity of money, the amount in the system is secondary