Today (1/21) Larry Hogan will be inaugurated as Maryland’s 62nd governor. Arguably, no election victory last November was more surprising than his.[1] The Republican won in a state where 55 percent of registered voters are Democrats and just 26 percent Republicans.[2] His opponent, outgoing Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, had all the benefits of a sitting state officeholder, outspent Hogan’s campaign by a 2-to-1 margin[3] and was heartily promoted by outgoing governor and 2016 presidential aspirant Martin O’Malley.

Hogan’s election was a stunning departure from Maryland’s politics-as-usual. In press reports following the upset, voters gave two reasons for supporting him: dislike of the state’s heavy tax burden and frustration that hefty wealth gains in Maryland’s highly affluent and heavily Democratic Washington, D.C. suburbs haven’t radiated out to other parts of the state.[4]

It thus seems that if any incoming governor has a mandate for change, it’s Hogan. And Maryland certainly needs change. While the rest of the nation is experiencing its first bout of strong economic growth since the mid-2000s, Maryland’s economy is lagging behind[5]—despite the benefit it receives from its adjacency to D.C. And the state’s own fiscal health is faltering: in the last several weeks, O’Malley has scrambled to close a quickly developing $410 million deficit in the current budget; next fiscal year, Hogan faces an estimated $750 million gap between intended spending and expected revenues.[6]

But do Marylanders really want change? Or do they just want political fantasy?

Too many people—both in Maryland and across the nation—regularly demand expanded government services and lower taxes. Point out that those are more-or-less mutually exclusive, and people will say they can have both if government were to eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse.”

To be sure, there’s plenty of waste, fraud and abuse in government. But they aren’t a simple line item in the budget that can be zeroed out. Rather, they exist as lots of small costs embedded in virtually everything government does—and the expense of finding and removing them is often greater than the waste, fraud and abuse themselves.

The best way to reduce waste, fraud and abuse is to shrink or eliminate government programs. And there are many programs ripe for cutting—either because they don’t provide benefits worth their costs or because they don’t provide any public benefit at all, but rather yield private benefits that people should purchase on their own.

But though it seems obvious that such programs should be cut, politically it’s almost impossible to do so.

Economist and political theorist Mancur Olson (who, fittingly, taught at the University of Maryland for over three decades) explained that the reason such programs persist is because they have concentrated benefits and dispersed costs.[7] A publicly funded sports stadium (to use a random example) is a private good: most of its benefits go to a discrete, identifiable group—the team owner, players and fans—and so they should pay its cost.[8] Yet in most jurisdictions—and especially in Maryland—stadiums are built with heavy public funding.

Why does this happen? Because the team owner will profit handsomely from a new stadium, while taxpayers will lose perhaps $20 or $40 each if the stadium is built. The team owner has considerable incentive to lobby for a stadium while individual taxpayers have only a small incentive—and not much time or money—to lobby against it. Politicians, who love few things more than a ribbon-cutting ceremony, side with the team owner. Meanwhile, taxpayers shoulder yet another small, dispersed cost—but those costs add up to a hefty tax bill.

Stadiums aren’t the only improper public spending. Rail transit systems like the D.C. area's Metro are extremely expensive per rider, have relatively low capacity, are highly inflexible and are hard to maintain.[9] They also arguably are no more environmentally sound than the cars they replace[10] and definitely more harmful than the cheaper, more capable “rapid bus” systems that could replace them.[11] Yet area real estate developers and wealthy commuters have strong demand for a jazzy, publicly subsidized Metro system.

Will Marylanders now abandon plans for a Metro Purple Line through the state’s rich D.C. suburbs? Will they reject public financing of more stadiums (and concert halls, convention centers and resort hotels) and demand fair lease rates or repayments for facilities that have already been built with public money? Will they pay tolls for their road use, instead of continuing the highly politicized gas tax system? Will they embrace a higher education system that funds students instead of institutions?

Those are the types of change that Maryland needs. But will Marylanders accept that change or continue fantasizing about more government at a lower cost?

Thomas A. Firey is a senior fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute and a Washington County native.