Your tax dollars and government spending

The courts have a doctrine called standing to sue, which requires a plaintiff to show individual or particularized harm or impact in order to contest the legality of a government expenditure or program. Simply having paid taxes to the government is not sufficient. This is a salutary doctrine: it prevents the courts from becoming even bigger political footballs.

But it is a legal doctrine, not a political doctrine. In evaluating the desirability of governmental activity, I assume that the money being spent by the government is my tax money. Money, after all, is fungible, and it makes just as much sense to assume that the government is spending my tax dollars as to assume that it is spending somebody else's tax dollars.

Thus, I ask myself whether I want to government spending my money to [fill in the blank]. For example, do I want the government to spend my money to pay off other peoples' mortgages? Or their credit card bills? The answer is obvious: no, heck no. We bought our house the old-fashioned way -- we paid for it, over the course of many years.

Do I want the government to spend my money to bail out Ford, GM, and Chrysler? The answer may not be as obvious, but it is still no. The so-called big three automakers have avoided making tough decisions regarding labor costs, the number of dealerships they support, and the number of plants they operate (or own but don't operate) for decades. If a government bailout would resolve these issues, it might make sense. But the automobile manufacturers want a bail out so that they can continue to avoid making these hard choices. In that respect, it really would be corporate welfare: the automakers would remain uncompetitive and continue to rely on government financial support indefinitely. The only way I know of for these companies to become competitive is to go through bankruptcy reorganization. That would be painful to be sure, but it would allow for the necessary restructuring.

So the next time you think about an existing or proposed government program, assume that your money will be paying for it, because it will be. There is no government money, just money that we earn and send to the government. I try never to lose sight of that fact.