It's not a scientific debate and there may not be a definitive answer. This is where smart people often go astray. Not everyone has the same preferences or tr

It's not a scientific debate and there may not be a definitive answer. This is where smart people often go astray. Not everyone has the same preferences or treats risk in the same manner. Anytime you start saying cost-benefit analysis you have to deal with the issue that there isn't one cost-benefit analysis. That makes it not science. 5% of GDP is huge but it doesn't have the same effect on each person in a society. There's also no way to take 5% of GDP without undesirable side-effects and those also have unpredictable distribution.