Public Choice: Why Politicians Don't Cut Spending

Why did politicians cut a trivial amount of money in the recent budget agreement? Prof. Ben Powell explains why politicians don't cut spending, as a general rule. Using public choice economics, or the economics of politics, he shows how the political system naturally leads to overspending.

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[Iori Kira]

Ron Paul

[Käptn Kook]

Ron Paul

[Sonsof13Anarchy]

Europe right now has many problems of its own it needs to fix, a few went bankrupt, a few are forced to help the other countries, to say that America needs to become like them is to say they need to replace problems with other even similar problems. Also Lobbying is mostly done by unions and Environmental groups, good luck getting them to agree to this.

[Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson]

We haven't legalised corruption in Europe so we still recognise it. South Europe does have problems such corruption but at least it's still illegal there. Do you think that there's no point in criminalising political corruption because some politicians may accept bribes after it’s been criminalised? The more America assimilates (Northern) Europe the better the whole world will be.

[UniversalPotentate]

You're wrong on the facts but that's NOT the point.

The point is a Constitutional Amendment to end lobbying and crony capitalism would improve all circumstances. Crony capitalism from fossil fuel companies is keeping renewables OFF the market. They also seem to be effectively marketing their message to people like you who seem to believe that renewables are being forced ON the market when they're actually being forced OFF the market.

[Sonsof13Anarchy]

Also on the deforestation retarded bullshit, America has gained forestry since 1920, and we still have a shitload of forest left. Also the Oceans are not nearly as bad as Environmental idiots say they are. Switching to Renewable energy is a good thing, but it should happen over time and with a free market incentive, not forced on people while in its infancy like they tried to with Ethanol, surprise! It didnt work.

[Sonsof13Anarchy]

You are literally stating that ONLY HUMANS have EVER contributed to rising temperatures in history, not ANYTHING ELSE. Again you talk about the ppm, why not talk about, I dont know, ACTUAL temperature, oh yeah because that shows that this problem is being highly overblown. Switching to renewable energy isnt bad, but FORCING it on the public, especially when its nowhere near powerful enough to replace oil, is bad. The Tar sands oil is already produced in quantity.

[UniversalPotentate]

It sounds like you're stating hard Fox. Not hard facts.

We cause global warming. Burning fossil fuels puts gas into the air. Deforestation/Ocean acidification prevents gases from being absorbed.

The tar sands oil won't be produced in quantity without Keystone. It produces the worst GH gases.

Climate is changing at a MASSIVE rate. We're over 400 ppm of carbon up from 310 ppm in 1950. We need to be UNDER 310 to reduce heat and keep the ice caps from melting.

Is switching to renewable energy bad?

[Sonsof13Anarchy]

No kool-aid for me just hard facts.

[UniversalPotentate]

Enjoy your Kool-Aid.

[Sonsof13Anarchy]

Ugh, first, WE DONT CAUSE IT, WE CONTRIBUTE TO IT, to actually suggest we cause it is retarded on many levels, keystone pipeline represents a safer way to transport the tar sands oils than the current way they do it which is ship it over the water, unless you love oil spills. and oh by the way, the climate is not changing at any significant rate whatsoever.;

[UniversalPotentate]

That's because overwhelming amount of clearly understandable scientific data demonstrates that global warming due to climate change is caused by manmade production of CO2 and other contaminants. The Keystone represents a way of processing tar sands oil which would pollute our air system at a rate even faster than current models, and we've already passed the dangerous 400 ppm mark which the earth hasn't seen in over 3 million years.

Everyone should be against Keystone.