President Donald Trump’s order to pause almost all federal grants and loans that do not go directly to (or, like student loans, directly for the benefit of) an individual, was likely illegal, at least for spending whose recipients are specifically authorized by Congress. Trump has since rescinded the order. But it should also be a massive wake-up call to tens of millions of Americans who haven’t understood the pervasiveness of federal funding of …well, almost everything.

While I won’t go as far as some who say that all taxation is theft, I do argue that all federal taxation to fund spending not authorized by the Constitution is theft. Furthermore, all spending is taxation. And so very much of our federal spending is extra-constitutional, and yet it has persisted even when Republicans are in charge.
The reaction to, and news stories about, the potential impact of the Trump spending freeze show just how far we are from fiscal sanity.
Yesterday, my city’s major newspaper, the Denver Post, ran a long (and quite good) article entitled, “Trump’s now-blocked federal spending freeze sends Colorado officials scrambling, with billions at stake.” Here’s a sample:
Much of Colorado’s $40 billion state budget as well as its hospitals, universities, early childhood programs, research laboratories, and other agencies and groups rely on federal funding for day-to-day operations. It wasn’t immediately clear how President Donald Trump’s attempted freeze, should it go into effect, would ripple through the state or affect residents’ access to services.
But early analysis from lawmakers and officials at the federal, state and local levels projected broad impact, from environmental programs to regular government funding to major capital projects reliant on federal grants.
Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, widely believed to harbor presidential ambitions, put out a statement on Tuesday that included, “This indefinite pause in Congressionally appropriated federal funding hurts children and ...