Public goods and income distribution, an explanatory comment

First, a simple analytical device known to virtually all students of the theory of public goods is used to provide a simplified explanation of the Aaron-McGuire model, given their assumptions. Next the author demonstrates that under these same assumptions adherence to the benefit principle in the financing of expenditures on pure public goods requires that taxes be levied on the basis of equal absolute sacrifice. This implies, of course, that efforts to implement the Aaron-McGuire methodology are destined to encounter the same obstacles that have stymied efforts to base taxation on the equal absolute sacrifice version of the ability-to-pay principle. Then the model is used to determine the implications of relaxing several of the original assumptions. Finally, the author provides some concluding reflections on the usefulness of the Aaron-McGuire analysis.