Not just the consent of representatives, but the very attention of the public.

Housing prices are going up = average citizen is happy, or at least not concerned

Fiscal austerity & inflation = average citizen is alarmed and votes you out of office

So yes, it's essentially a magician's version of the hard choices government has to make.

> Yeah, I get the feeling that this theory is mostly based on the fact that the consent of elected representatives is required to raise taxes, but not to print money.

It's required for both; the fact that Congress has delegated monetary policy and not recalled it, and not done the same with fiscal policy doesn't change that, it's just the mechanism by which it provides ongoing consent to the Feds decisions in monetary policy.