Tax reduction has an almost irresistible appeal to the politician, and it is no doubt also gratifying to the citizen. It means more dollars in his pocket, dollars that he can spend if inflation doesn't consume them first. But dollars in his pocket won't buy him clean streets or an adequate police force or good schools or clear air and water. Handing money back to the private sector in tax cuts and starving the public sector is a formula for producing richer and richer consumers in filthier and filthier communities. If we stick to that formula we shall end up in affluent misery.

John W. Gardner
The Recovery of Confidence (1970) [RQ]

We get richer and richer in filthier and filtheir communities until we reach a final state of affluent misery—crocus on a garbage heap. [SCQ]