Clarity of thought: telling Congress how to improve §101

Economist Frédéric Bastiat used the parable of the broken window to illustrate that assessing an activity’s merits must take into account not only the obvious results of that activity, but also what is unseen. In short, Bastiat reminds us that the economic activity prompted by repairing a broken window—activity that is seen—must be considered along with the unseen economic activity that would have occurred had there been no need for those repairs.