Ȃȁȃ Partʺʺ: Politics and Philosophypresent topic, the central argument is worth reviewing. Ļe alternative
to such a limit—letting total spending emerge as the sum of individu-
ally enacted appropriations—is biased upward. Some people are especially
interested in government spending on rivers and harbors and military
installations, others in spending for schools and teachers, others in hous-
ing subsidies, and still others in energy-research contracts. Because of its
special interest, each group is well informed about the government action
it wants and has arguments for it readily at hand. Furthermore, since the
benefits of its favorite program will be relatively concentrated on itself
rather than diluted over the entire population, its members have incen-
tives to incur the trouble and expense of pressing the group’s views on the
legislators. A candidate or legislator, for his part, knows that each special
interest cares intensely about what concerns it and fears that losing the
support of only a few such interests could cost him election or reelection;
so he tends to be responsive.Ȅ
Ļe links between particular government expenditures and particular
tax collections are loose. No one really knows who will ultimately pay for a
government program. Ļe voter can drift into thinking that someone else,
perhaps “the rich” or the big corporations, will pay or ought to pay. (Not
even economists know who ultimately pays the corporate income tax.) It is
easy to drift into thinking that the government gets resources out of some
sort of fourth dimension. Politicians will not hasten to disabuse voters of
this “fiscal illusion.” Nowadays, with taxes and inflation being what they
are, this illusion is evaporating; but the very fact that the present state of
affairs could develop suggests that some such illusion has been at work
until recently.
An art-loving journalist has unwittingly illustrated the sort of attitude
that expands government activity—and thereby also illustrated the logic
of the sort of limit he was complaining against (SansweetȀȈȆȇ, p.ȀȀ). State
and local government actions taken after passage of PropositionȀȂin Cali-
fornia reveal, he complained, that many officials see the arts as an expend-
able elitist pursuit. Ļe recent tremendous growth in public funding for
the arts had suddenly been thrown into reverse. Aȅǿpercent slash in the
budget of a state agency making grants to art programs and individual
artists had lowered California toȃȃth place among all states in per capita
funding for the arts. Yet, he continued, the arts pay the wages of hundreds
ȄSee “Single-Issue Politics,” inNewsweekȀȈȆȇ, pp.ȃȇ–ȅǿ, and, on congressmen’s feel-
ings of insecurity, see MannȀȈȆȇ.