Commentary on State Capacity and State Priorities

Two EconLog readers comments on yesterdays post struck me:

Phil H.:

Caplans point is a good and striking one. His conclusion is fairly extraordinary, though: He is apparently claiming that all (or a plurality) of the major decision makers in the American government are power-hungry demagogues who deliberately decided to channel money into stimulus rather than research because they are bad people.

I like a powerful contrarian claim, but this one is a little too far for me.

Fair question,...