I'm not a constitutional scholar, so I'm happy to be told I'm in error about this. But I'm trying to understand how W. Dellinger can say that there is no harm to the taxpayers in Hein, and so no standing. Isn't the precedent, upheld by the FEC ruling, that spending money is a form of speech? And so isn't saying it's okay to spend my tax money on something sort of a tacit way of saying I agree with or I approve of what it is being spent on? So if my tax money is being spent to support religious institutions that I don't support or agree with, isn't that a violation of my first amendment rights? I mean isn't the harm that the government is essentially forcing me to support particular religious institutions that I might not agree with? Or by Dellinger's argument, would my case only have merit if I argued that having to support a specific religious institution with my tax money was violating my freedom to practice religion (or not) in the way I want.

I realize that there's a potential problem with the argument I've laid out b/c it opens the door to saying that spending tax dollars on anything that I don't approve of is a violation of my right to free speech (in the form of silence in support of things I don't like). But I would think that there's probably a fairly clear way to distinguish between spending in general and spending that targets only specific religious institutions (and not all non-profits in general). Also, my argument isn't that the court should necessarily find for the taxpayer group in this case, but that I think that if the legislature or the executive branch is going to ask me to contribute money to religious groups...then I should at least be able to have the judiciary decide if they're doing it in a constitutional way.

Your arguement is an intersting one. And you could make the distinction by saying that only Congressionally authorized spending can take place. Because Congressionally authorized spending has had all voices heard (ostensibly) as part of the debate on the issue.

Whereas Executive Spending is unilateral and thus harms you exactly in the manner you describe. Note that this is somewhat in concert with Cheney's recent assertions about the Office of the VP. Cheney essentially is saying that both the POTUS, the VP and their immediate staffs are not "agencies" which can be overseen by any of the other arms of government. Well that's a legalistic arguement that could hold. But if it does, it also means that they should have ZERO discretionary spending, since the US Constitution places exclusive spending authority with Congress.

This would resolve both your and Cheney's assertions in a manner that overall benefits the people of the USA by limiting the power of the "unitary executive".

You are quite right thus demonstrating that one doesn't have to be a constitutional scholar to spot bullshit.

Degs, it actually goes (or at least went) further than that. It limited discretionary spending to Congress, and then limited the authority for Congress to spend it -- spending was only authorized for a few set purposes and Congress was not supposed to allocate funds outside them. This practice was the settled law of the land from the adoption of the Constitution until the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration.

Actually, you raise an interesting point. I've always toyed with the idea of how much fun it would be for the Federal Government to create a sort of cafeteria style tax system. In it, we'd all be given the privilege of checking the boxes of portions of the goverment and governmental obligations we individually support. I imagine the nations priorities would change on a dime. This would truly be democracy to the extreme. Further, it actually might be a good thing rather than a bad one. After all, why do we now recoil in fear that the populace of the U.S. might actually be given the right to govern ourselves? We are given the direct impression that we have a patriotic duty to have our taxes and government raised and expanded even when we don't know why. If I could custom-support exactly where my money goes, I could finally feel good about my involvement and participation. After all, don't we really vote with our dollars anyway?