Somewhere, Matthew Lesko must be smiling.
In this brief, Cato Institute's Chris Edwards documents the jaw-dropping number of federal subsidy programs that hand out "free-money" from the federal government.
By 2008, there were 1,804 different subsidy programs in the federal budget. Hundreds of programs were added this decade—ranging from a $62 billion prescription drug plan to a $1 million anti-drug education grant—and the recent stimulus bill added even more. We are in the midst of the largest federal gold rush since the 1960s.
One measure of the government’s rising intervention is the number of programs listed in the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance. The 2,205-page CFDA is an official compilation of all federal aid or subsidy programs, including grants, loans, insurance, scholarships, and other types of benefits.
More than 2,000 pages are needed to list all the ways in which the government takes money from people who earned it and transfer it to people who didn't. A more appropriate title for the CFDA would be The Politician's Guide to Vote Buying.
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