Most of what the federal government does is subsidize consumption.

I have for years said that the primary objective of any government is to ensure long term productivity growth.  Everything else desirable follows from real porductivity growth.  No productivity growth and all you get is unpleasant decline.

From Cutting Entitlements by Douglas Holtz-Eakin.  Saying basically the same thing in a different way.

Most of what the federal government does is subsidize consumption. The federal budget is just a big machine that takes money from saving and investment and transforms it into consumption. And the only way economies grow successfully is to defer consumption, save and invest for the future. So, it is stacked to make things perform worse. I want to stack it the other way.