In his 1850 essay, Frédéric Bastiat discusses the notion of “Public Works.” He explains that public works like opening roads, building palaces, and repairing streets create jobs and boost the economy in the short term, but they take away unseen opportunities in the long run.
Tuesday night’s address to Congress by President Trump was devoid of detail on infrastructure investment. But in justifying his desire to harness $1 trillion of public and private funds for “new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways”, the President used two lines of bad economic reasoning sadly all too prevalent in public debate on this […]