Wealth & Money Quote by Michael Enzi

Enzi’s line lands like a wink with a blade behind it: he frames government spending not as solemn stewardship but as a guilty pleasure. “One of my favorite things” borrows the language of hobbies and indulgences, shrinking a public obligation into a private thrill. Then he drags the room into complicity - “I am sure everybody else’s in this Chamber” - turning what could be a personal jab into an institutional indictment. It’s a classic legislative tell: if everyone is implicated, no one can easily stand up and object without sounding sanctimonious or self-exculpatory.

The punchline, “You really don’t get much opposition when you give away money,” is doing two jobs at once. On the surface it’s a bit of wry truth about incentives: spending creates beneficiaries now, while costs diffuse into the future and across taxpayers. Underneath, it’s an attack on the moral asymmetry of budgeting, where saying yes is politically pleasurable and saying no is socially punishing. “Give away” is loaded phrasing, implying the money doesn’t belong to the institution in the first place and that generosity is being performed with other people’s wallets.

Context matters: Enzi built a reputation as a deficit hawk and procedural budget guy, often warning about unsustainable promises. This quip reads like a weaponized confession, designed to embarrass colleagues out of easy applause for new programs. It’s not anti-compassion so much as anti-costless compassion: a reminder that popularity is not evidence of prudence.