Economics professor Emily Skarbeck writes here about the steadily rising burden of government on taxpayers. She highlights the problem by noting the opportunity cost — the amounts that taxpayers could have saved and invested if it weren’t for (as Amity Schlaes entitled one of her books) The Greedy Hand of the state.
The more the government spends (and borrows to spend), the more resources are taken away from individuals in the private sector, who can’t devote them to purposes of their choosing (spending, saving, charity). Instead the resources are sucked into the federal treasury to be devoted to all the boondoggles that the politicians have given us. You might be a progressive if you think that makes the country better off.
