… is from page 296 of Dwight Lee’s 1987 essay “Deficits, Political Myopia and the Asymmetric Dynamics of Taxing and Spending”; this essay is chapter 16 in James M. Buchanan, Charles K. Rowley, & Robert D. Tollison, eds., Deficits:
Because of the absence of privately owned and transferable claims against the collective value created, or destroyed, by political decisions, citizens will be less sensitive to reductions the long-run wealth of the general political community than to temporary, but individually realized, benefits. For this reason politicians can pursue with impunity a policy analogous to that of excessive corporate borrowing to finance current benefits.
See, e.g., Greece circa 2011.
