The broken bridge of public finance: majority rule, earmarked taxes and social engineering

Nobel laureate James Buchanan was influenced substantially by Knut Wicksell’s arguments in favor of unanimous consent or “qualified majorities” for approving or rejecting specific public spending programs. Buchanan thought of Wicksell’s recommendation that spending proposals be tied to dedicated revenue sources as way of erecting a bridge between the two sides of the public budget, thereby forcing politicians to face the same tradeoffs as...