Benefit-Cost Analysis and Distortionary Taxes: A Public Choice Approach
(1993)

This paper seeks general principles governing the attitudes of
selfish individuals toward proposals by the government to collect
taxes and to provide public goods.  We follow Wicksell in
considering only tax-expenditure proposals that specifically tie
expenditures to taxes that finance them.  While we do not here pursue a particular
theory of political decision-making, the analysis  offered is we
think a necessary building block for any theory of  democratic
decisions about public expenditures. For example, if the issue to
be voted on is a one-dimensional and if preferences are
``single-peaked'', we could follow Bowen (1943) in predicting
that the outcome of democratic processes would be the median of
voters' preferred choices.  The same analysis would also be
useful as foundations for more elaborate theories which 
incorporate ``log-rolling'' on multiple issues.