Wealth & Money Quote by Rick Santorum

Santorum’s line is a small masterpiece of political throat-clearing: “My feeling is, well” pretends to be modest, even folksy, while quietly laying down a hard claim about power. The hedges are the point. By presenting judgment as a personal “feeling,” he smuggles a moral argument into the conversation without sounding like he’s issuing a decree.

The core move is simple: convert taxation into ownership. “My money” recasts public revenue as private property temporarily held hostage by the state, so scrutiny isn’t just allowed, it’s framed as a right. That’s not a budget argument so much as a permission slip for moral policing. Once the money is “mine,” the next step follows naturally: I get to decide what kinds of people and choices deserve it.

The subtext is a familiar American fusion of consumer logic and citizenship: I paid, therefore I’m the customer, therefore I can complain about the product. In politics, that “product” is often other people’s lives, and “judge” isn’t about auditing spreadsheets; it’s about ranking behaviors.

The context matters because Santorum’s brand has long blended fiscal conservatism with cultural enforcement. This sentence works as a bridge between those worlds: it lets a speaker sound like a taxpayer watchdog while teeing up judgments about welfare, public services, or social programs. It’s less a statement of principle than a rhetorical claim to the mic: pay-in equals moral authority.