Jonathan Gruber opens MIT's 14.41, Public Finance and Public Policy, by laying out the questions the course will spend the semester answering: when should government intervene in the economy, how should it intervene, and what effects do those interventions actually have. He frames public finance as the study of government's economic role, from taxation to spending programs, and previews the analytical tools students will use to weigh efficiency against equity. Gruber uses concrete examples of government programs to motivate why the topic matters beyond the classroom, setting up the theoretical framework that later lectures will build on. Fifty three minutes of introduction, delivered in Gruber's characteristic direct lecture style, meant to orient students before the course moves into formal models of market failure and policy design.