Why do government inflate the value of currency by printing more if printing more does nothing to increase the buying power that government has?
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Long story short, the reason is to lower interest rates, encourage borrowing, and reduce the value of the currency to make exports more attractive, not to give money directly to the government (even though that also happens).
More importantly, though, the government doesn’t “print money”, at least not in the sense you’re meaning. The government *literally* prints money, in that they’re in charge of minting physical currency, but the money printing that increases the money supply is done by the Federal Reserve.
Without getting too into the weeds, in a recession, interest rates would, *in theory*, cause rates to increase as credit risk increases (as companies are more likely to default), the government borrows more money (which is a drain on the existing money supply) and banks have less capital to lend out (which is an ELI5 post unto itself). Increased rates mean less economic activity, as businesses and individuals borrow less money for building new buildings, buying new cars/houses/assets, etc..
To combat this, the Federal Reserve prints money, which increases the supply of money. When there’s more money available, the price of money (the interest rate) goes down – this is the same as any other asset, where oversupply leads to a decrease in price.
This eventually leads to inflation, but inflation is a lagging indicator, and the lower interest rates can be a mechanism to directly address a downturn.
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