One of the ironies of welfare-state policymaking is that governments often feel obliged to create programs to offset the ill effects of other programs. Lotteries, for instance, lead to public-service campaigns warning people about the addiction to gambling fostered by lotteries. The U.S. government spends money on public television children’s programs that air alongside public service messages that discourage kids from spending too much time in front of the television. If government programs encourage unhealthy behavior, wouldn’t it be wiser and easier just to get rid of the programs?

But government expenditures often exist outside the world of ordinary logic, and in any case the dollar amounts are usually too small for most people to get exercised about. On July 24, however, the Trump administration announced a breathtakingly expensive version of this perverse offset dynamic: a $12 billion aid package for farmers harmed by retaliatory tariffs imposed by foreign governments in response to Trump’s new trade barriers. Got that? A problem caused by bigger government (tariffs) will be solved by expanding government further (bailouts for farmers).