Jim Epstein of Reason.tv documents in the following video, what went wrong with Obama's stimulus spending program which features the case study of Silver Spring, Maryland. (hat tip Professor Russ Roberts).
Among the many reasons: red tape, prioritization of political objectives, cronyism, wrong targets, insufficient knowledge and more..., which has led to unintended consequences and most importantly to taxpayer losses.
This isn't a problem confined to the US, rather this needs to be seen as universally applicable, even to the Philippines. Politicians find it so easy to spend on other people's money which eventually not only fails to achieve its objectives but increases the overall burden of the people (through higher taxes and wastage of scarce resources). Yet government's failure has usually not been remedied by discipline, i.e. withdrawal of funding, but instead gets rewarded by more spending.
Among the many reasons: red tape, prioritization of political objectives, cronyism, wrong targets, insufficient knowledge and more..., which has led to unintended consequences and most importantly to taxpayer losses.
This isn't a problem confined to the US, rather this needs to be seen as universally applicable, even to the Philippines. Politicians find it so easy to spend on other people's money which eventually not only fails to achieve its objectives but increases the overall burden of the people (through higher taxes and wastage of scarce resources). Yet government's failure has usually not been remedied by discipline, i.e. withdrawal of funding, but instead gets rewarded by more spending.
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