I guess it proves the old adage about democracy being a bad system because eventually people just vote largesse to themselves. It's a system that rewards politicians who tell people what they want to hear, and punishes politicians who tell people unpleasant truths.
On comment threads at other sites, someone will usually object to the above by pointing out that this is a republic, not a democracy. Indeed, but they've got their tenses wrong. This was a republic. The past century has seen it transformed into more of a direct democracy, because those darned constitutional restraints were getting in the way of self-serving demagoguery.