Robbing Peter to pay Paul

Today I've had a lot of Facebook friends of the liberal persuasion posting links to this article by Paul Begala. In it Begala says a lot of intellectually dishonest stuff, but this paragraph pretty much sums up his argument:

If Republican politicians are so deeply opposed to President Obama's economic recovery plan, they should refuse to take the money. After all, if you think all that federal spending is damaging, there are easy ways to reduce it: Don't take federal money.

So the government wouldn't spend the money? Ha! I didn't say that, says Begala.

Let's keep our federal money -- give it to states where the governors will actually put it to good use. We'll let Gov. Sanford try his plan, we'll try President Obama's plan.

I could probably write an entire post about this notion of "our federal money" and his evocation of "we," because if he's referring to "we the People's" money, then the people who decline to receive the freshly printed cash should be able to not have their share spent.

Of course, that's exactly what he doesn't have in mind.

Begala's insinuation is that even if you don't want to pay for a debt the government nonetheless incurs -- and that you wanted your representative to vote against -- that you're duty bound to pay for it anyway, and then decline to use what you've been forced to purchase. 

There are many words for that. I'll let you pick one.

But it also reminds me of a George Bernard Shaw quote. "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." 

I'm sure Paul would agree.