When business competition goes awry, government steps in to correct the market failure. Who steps in when government competition goes awry? Governments are not

When business competition goes awry, government steps in to correct the market failure. Who steps in when government competition goes awry? Governments are not perfect substitutes for each other. Packing up and moving to another city is harder than changing almost any other consumer choice. Government officials don't compete to make their citizens as happy as possible, they compete to make their voter base as happy as possible. If they can improve the lives of the majority of their voters by hurting non-voters or those who vote for someone else, they have every incentive to do so.