Government Is A Game of Deadly Trade-Offs

There are always opportunity costs. Essentially these are: we can't do this thing here because we've just gone and done that thing over there. For example, if I have a pound, and apples and pears are a pound each, then if I have an apple, I cannot have the pear - my opportunity cost of having the apple is the pear I don't have. Because resources are scarce and desires unlimited, there are always opportunity costs.