Limited Government Lessons

Davey Crockett as a congressman learned a valuable lesson from one of his constituents. Crockett had proposed to have Congress pay an amount of $20,000 to a widow of a service member. His constitutent, Mr. Bunce addresses this with him

So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other.

It's a great story and demonstrates how easily corruption sneaks in through the guise of charity when giving other people's money. Obvious current examples FEMA, Medicare and Medicaid are just a few of the easy targets created when the people's money is being passed around by programs run by bureaucrats.