ABSTRACT
Although during the summer of 1993 congressional budget negotiators spent weeks of apparently arduous labor forging a compromise package, the outcome was preordained: the taxpayers would be plucked. The steady increase in government expenditures is constantly justified on the basis of "compassion". In its recent rush to be compassionate to flood victims Congress simply increased the deficit, preferring not to be bothered by finding counterbalancing cuts elsewhere. Untold billions more are spent annually to demonstrate compassion for the elderly, compassion for the sick, compassion for farmers, and compassion for anyone else lobbying for a place at the federal trough. Of course, however civic-minded America's legislators, most are at least as interested in winning votes as in exercising compassion, which helps explain why their professed generosity extends to huge aerospace concerns, small liquor stores, yacht owners, labor union executives, and any other interest group with at least three members.
