≡ Menu

Uncle Sam, Bogeyman

Below is a letter that I sent last week to the Wall Street Journal:

So now Uncle Sam is subsidizing Americans’ purchases of golf carts (“Cash for Clubbers,” Oct. 17).

This sorry fact is unsurprising.  As Milton Friedman pointed out, money is spent most carefully when the money spent belongs to the person spending it and when that person spends it for himself and his family.  Money is spent least carefully – indeed, often destructively – when it does not belong to the person spending it and when that person spends it not for himself but, instead, for strangers.

Because Congress spends other people’s money ostensibly for other people’s good, subsidized golf carts are par for the course.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

Comments