 Buchanan’s critique of Keynes differs from Friedman’s, though their critiques are mutually reinforcing. Buchanan (1987, 1999) thinks that even if Keynes’s diagnosis of recessions is correct, his cure cannot work well so long as governments are staffed with real-world people. Many politicians and government officials are more concerned about benefiting themselves and special interest groups than about promoting the common good. So, when a government engages in debt-financed economic stimulus, the money is more likely to be directed to politicians’ favored groups than to the places the stimulus money is most needed. A central difficulty for Keynesian fiscal policy is the pervasive risk of government failure caused by the actions of often self-interested economic actors, a consistent theme of The Calculus of Consent (Buchanan &amp; Tullock 1962). Likewise, once people develop a taste for direct transfers, they will make it hard to shrink the deficit when the recession is over, leading to long-term debt and lower economic prosperity and growth.