… is from page 295 of Thomas Sowell’s May 29, 1998, column titled “The Insulation of the Left,” as this column is reprinted in Sowell’s 2002 collection, Controversial Essays:
One of the reasons why government absorbs so much money and takes on ever-increasing powers is that it is home to so many people whose beliefs could not withstand the draconian tests of science, the marketplace or a scoreboard. What we the taxpayers are ultimately paying for is their insulation from reality, as they pursue the heady pleasures of power.