The ramp-up effect

Sometimes, looking at the political discourse in this country, I wonder
if we really understand the ramp-up effect of increasing government
programs and power over time; unlike in business, unlike in nature,
unlike in, well, real life, failure is not punished, but at best
ignored, at worst rewarded. Once a program is in place, it is almost
never repealed, even when Republicans obtain political power, because
voters become dependent on it.
 
{mosads}Progressives have known this for as long as they have been blowing up the bureaucracy. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) famously said that, if it took losing a few members of Congress in the next election to get ObamaCare passed, it would be worth it. And this was no partisan bias: Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) agreed, warning his troops that once an entitlement is given, it is nearly impossible to get it back.