The fact that many private expenditures are mutually offsetting actually happens to constitute a remarkably good bit of fiscal news. Mutually offsetting spending patterns are wasteful in the same way that military arms races are. In such situations, if each party spends less, nothing is sacrificed, yet resources are freed up that can be put to much better uses.

Only the federal government has the power to spend beyond its current revenue. It shouldn't do that when the economy is at full employment. But it's an essential step for an economy mired in recession.

No society has ever succeeded without a decent government.

Unless we can act collectively, there would be no way to defend ourselves, no way to define or enforce property rights. We couldn't curb congestion or pollution or build and maintain public infrastructure.

The primary source of waste in government is that legislators are often under heavy pressure to vote for projects that will benefit their campaign contributors, even when those projects fail a simple cost-benefit test. But with the Supreme Court showing little interest in permitting tighter rules on campaign contributions in recent years, there is little reason to be optimistic that we'll start curbing this kind of waste any time soon.

The fact that many private expenditures are mutually offsetting actually happens to constitute a remarkably good bit of fiscal news. Mutually offsetting spending patterns are wasteful in the same way that military arms races are. In such situations, if each party spends less, nothing is sacrificed, yet resources are freed up that can be put to much better uses.

The private sector is first of all much larger than the public sector. The waste we see in that sector does not result from the fact that people spend their money carelessly. Mostly, it occurs because what one family must spend to achieve its goals often depends heavily on what other families spend.