God, Taxes, and You

When the yobbos turned Boston Harbor into a teapot that cold December night in 1773 they were protesting taxation without representation. Notice that they were not protesting taxation; just taxation without representation. Notice also that they were not protesting taxation that they themselves had not approved, only taxes their representatives had not approved. Theoretically, at least, they approved of a government collecting taxes from them and then spending the money however their elected representatives decreed. We can doubt; however, that there was much theorizing going on while they were tossing casks of tea overboard. Ruffians act; intellectuals theorize.

But what happens when an individual citizen (or group of citizens) feels herself aggrieved by her representatives’ choice of how to spend her tax dollars? As President Bush frequently reminds us, it is our money. Are you upset about sending some of your money to the government which is then used to fund a war of which you disapprove or upset that funding for a war of which you do approve is not increased? Don’t want your money used to build roads in wilderness areas or bridges to nowhere or to fund abortion clinics or produce pamphlets about birth control? What can you do except vote for some other representative the next time you get the chance? Specifically, can you go to court and sue to stop your money being spent in a way that is morally abhorrent to you?

The answer is almost certainly no.

Fundamentally, the answer is “no” for two reasons. In the first place, under our system of republican government we empower our elected representatives to make decisions on our behalf. If we don’t like the decisions they make, we are free to vote the scoundrels out the next time around. (Assuming, of course, that the voting system is fair and unrigged.) In the meantime, we are legally bound by their decisions.

The second reason is the utter impossibility of a government making decisions about how to spend our money with which every single one of us agrees. Imagine a legal system where every citizen who disapproves of any appropriation could go to a courthouse and sue the government to stop an expenditure. In a matter of hours, the legal system and the government would grind to a halt. A government that cannot spend money unless every single one of its citizens agrees is a Dodo lurching to extinction.

Which brings me to the case of Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation, one of the last cases decided by our Supreme Court before it took its summer vacation.

Actually, I lie. One more entire post needs to precede a discussion of that case. We have to talk about “standing” first. Lawyers, for centuries now, appropriate perfectly good words with perfectly clear meanings and turn them into words that only another lawyer can understand. We call them “terms of art.” It is how we keep the laity at bay.

I really will get to these Supreme Court decisions.

So, stay tuned for our next exciting episode when we’ll see our hero step into a boxing ring for an exciting bout with a lout. . . .

Also note that the Washington Post editorializes today about Henry Aaron and agrees with me. Is that a good thing? Read the editorial here.  Read my post here.