While no one would advocate these particular trade-offs, what open-ended demands for open space, crime control, better health or cleaner air and water do advocate leaves out the very concept of trade-offs. That is what makes such demands open-ended, both as regards the amounts of money required and often also the amounts of restrictions on people’s freedom required to enforce these demands. Open-ended demands are a mandate for ever-expanding government bureaucracies with ever-expanding budgets and powers.
