Why did tax reform succeed in gaining passage while the family assistance plan failed? Using cultural theory, we argue that the active consent of elites from three political cultures is required before radical policy proposals will win political support in America. Although the Nixon...

What don’t I mean by expenditure limitation? This paper is not about why governments should chose to limit spending. If governments wish to increase spending, that is obviously their prerogative. Moreover, they are, on the evidence, very good at it. Governments need no advice on doing what...

Que faut-il, à mon sens, exclure de la notion de limitation des dépenses ? Le présent document ne traitera pas des raisons pour lesquelles les gouvernements devraient décider de limiter les dépenses. S’ils souhaitent les accroître, ils en ont sans conteste la prérogative. De surcroît,...

In this paper we challenge the traditional distinction between public goods and private goods. Economists use a definition of public goods that rests on the inherent properties of the good itself. Referring to criteria such as non-rivalness and non-excludability, they assert that the distinction...

Our paper reviews Marxist, pluralist and conservative theories of the state under capitalism from the standpoint of evidence on United States federal taxing and spending during the 1980s. The deficit panic is a product of the political stratum that defines the public interest as actions opposed...