Public Choice theory posits that politicians will make decisions far more to benefit themselves than to benefit the rest of the citizenry. In this Cato post, David Boaz points out that New York’s Tappan Zee Bridge, now in need of costly repairs, could easily have been placed just a few miles away and been much shorter. New York politicians did not do so, however, to maximize benefit to themselves.
We keep hearing about how government “stimulus projects” are so essential for economic recovery. The trouble is that they’re usually either completely unnecessary, or done inefficiently. Wasting resources does not make the country better off.
