Executive Summary
The major social problems of the United States—deteriorating ed
ucation, lawlessness and crime, homelessness, the collapse of family
values, the crisis in medical care—have been produced by well
intended actions of government. That is easy to document. The
difficult task is understanding why government is the problem. The
power of special interests arising from the concentrated benefits of
most government actions and their dispersed costs is only part of the
answer. A more fundamental part is the difference between the
self-interest of individuals when they are engaged in the private
sector and the self-interest of the same individuals when they are
engaged in the government sector. The result is a government system
that is no longer controlled by “we, the people.” Instead of Lincoln’s
government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” we
now have a government “of the people, by the bureaucrats, for the
bureaucrats,” including the elected representatives who have become
bureaucrats. At the moment, term limits appear to be the reform
that promises to be most effective in curbing Leviathan.
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