G Alston –
You make Mitchell’s argument better than he does. The government puts taxpayer money to effective use when it seeks to spend it on things that actually further governmental goals. Because this goes to something useful for the government, it creates spin-off technologies which benefit many more people.
Economic stimulus of the Keynesian kind fails because doing things *for the sake of doing them* is always inefficient. If the federal government wanted to provide an economic stimulus, it would streamline itself so the money it spends is spent as efficiently as possible, and it would leave a lot more money in the hands of us taxpayers.
Redistribution and massive public works for their own sake *always* fail. Spending money on useful things stimulates the economy, whether done by the government or taxpayers.
