In the famous marshmallow test, researchers wanted to see how children would react when given the choice between having one marshmallow now, or two if they would not eat the first one for 15 minutes. Can the kids delay gratification or not?
We have been running an adult version of the marshmallow test for years in Washington, D.C. Will our elected leaders eat the marshmallow (i.e., tax revenues) now, or save the money for later? In this sharp AIER article, economics professor Gary Galles points out that the politicians regularly fail the test.
He writes:
Over and over, when we look at what Democrats brag the most about and push hardest for, we find marshmallow-test failures. Their most prized accomplishments are about accelerating their favored groups’ gratification by creating additional burdens for others far into the future, the opposite of delaying gratification on a grander scale than any citizen could even contemplate. Their leading “new ideas” are creative only in finding new ways to do more of the same. In other words, the party most notable for its claims to care more about the future than anyone else actually threatens all future generations of Americans.
He’s right.
I will only add that the Founders understood that temptation among politicians and tried to curb it by putting severe limits on what Congress and the president were allowed to do. That worked for a while, until “progressives” captured the Supreme Court and undid all the restraints on spending, making possible the prodigious size of the government today and its rapidly escalating debt.