Elected officials have powerful incentives to spend, and the administrators of government agencies — always seeking to increase their budgets — are happy to oblige. But the federal budget is finite. There are equally-powerful incentives to create more programs, as politicians are driven to make more citizens dependent upon government.

So elected officials paradoxically have incentives to limit spending by any given agency so that dollars can be spread across more programs. The upshot? A drive to reduce outlays by hiding spending or shifting costs onto states or the private sector.

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