fabio guillermo rojas wrote:
>
> > In other words, all of the main items in the budget are popular and
> > indeed if anything the public wants them to be larger. (Presumably views
>
> Question: could public opinion be endogenous? Ie, maybe there might
> be some status quo bias? Would people before the New Deal or the Great
> Society have approved of specific programs before they existed?
>
> Isn't it "folk wisdom" that many gov't programs start with promises
> they'll stay small (income tax, social security, medicaid) but once
> they exist, they become popular?
This is highly plausible to me. I would certainly expect initial
support to be lower, leading to initially smaller programs. Once the
programs exist, people come to want larger programs, and politicians
respond accordingly.
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George Mason University
http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one
would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not
necessary that anyone but himself should understand it."
Leo Tolstoy, *The Cossacks*
