One is tempted to wonder. Consider these news headlines off of Yahoo! News:
Government Sued Over Medicare Drug Benefit
Senate Panel Demands Oil Co. Tax Records
You might ask, "What is Uncle Sam being sued over?" in relation to the first headline. Could it be that giving prescription drug coverage to the wealthiest demographic of the U.S. population doesn't fall within Congress' power to "promote the general Welfare"? No, actually it's because the Department of Health and Human Services allegedly failed to "ensure that poor people were enrolled properly in Medicare's new prescription drug benefit."
Notwithstanding the moral realities of confiscatory taxation and government spending, I could understand the majoritarian argument that voters in a majority of legislative districts voted for candidates advocating "free" pills for seniors, so in a democracy we should get what we want. Fine. But if the hardworking majority of Americans effectively voted out of the kindness of their hearts to establish this program, does it not make sense that anyone wishing to take advantage of our charity (I say "our" since I voted for congresscritters who voted for Medicare Part D) should have to follow the enrollment rules to do so? Isn't it just rude to say, "I didn't follow the rules -- give me the benefit of your kindness anyway!" and expect the judiciary to enforce your desire.
Libertarians know of course that there is no free lunch, and what is really going on is that the cabal of statists that runs the AARP (with the silent assent of its travel discount-loving members) has persuaded our elected officials to take a few dollars out of the pockets of we who work (by force, of course, because the monopoly on the use of force is what seperates the government from you and me and allows Uncle Sam to masquerade around as Santa Claus instead of a common thief) and give them to the bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirts set.
In the second news story we find those same elected officials grandstanding over the issue of allegedly record high oil prices. I emphasize grandstanding because it's the federal government. I'm fairly sure (correct me if I'm wrong) that a subpoena from a Congressional committee is quite suffecient to obtain someone's tax records. "Demanding" them just makes you look good and aggressive to the voters. I emphasize "allegedly record high" because, adjusting for inflation, oil was about $14 a barrel more expensive that it is today. Now we find people clamoring for price caps (see my comments on that idea from the post-Katrina hysteria of last August) and a so-called "windfall profits" tax. I'll point you also to my comments last November on the idea of "windfall profits":
As WILLisms reveals, oil profits as a percentage of overall revenue during the second quarter of FY2005 were less than those posted in the banking, pharmaceutical, software, insurance, telecom (despite lots of government regulation), real estate and health care sectors.
[...]
Exactly what the heck is an "excess" profit anyway? And if you want to impose an "excess" profits tax on the oil and gas industry, you should be intellectually honest and insist on likewise taxing the above mentioned industries and any business whose profit exceeds 7.7% of revenue. Good luck trying to collect much revenue from this tax though because corporate accountants would immediately go to work finding new "expenses" they can claim ate up their revenue.
I don't buy into Ayn Rand's "altruism is bad" nonsense because she's simply wrong: Altruisim is good when it isn't coerced. Or more accurately there is no such thing as coerced altruism. It's theft, only society tells the victims to act like a rape victim whose reaction is to shrug off the violation and say, "That was good sex." But there isn't anything wrong with greed as defined by society anyway, as long as you don't go nuts about it or act dishonorably in pursuit of greed. Where is the shame in someone selling something that people want to buy at a price that both are comfortable with? Must Read: Francisco D'Anconia's "Money Speech" from Atlas Shrugged.
Sometimes I look at the state of affairs in our nation's crapitol and say, "Grrr." Today is one of those days. | 
