The Associated Press reported on October 20, 2005 that federal Viagra subsidies may come to an end in an effort to reallocate money for spending on the poor and the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Ought medication for erectile dysfunction have been subsidized in the first place? And is it really better for those funds to be reallocated in such a way?

The answers are "no" and "don't assume so." The subsidization of anything is an intentional market distortion. It's the admission of someone with authoritative fiscal power saying, "the owners of these dollars wish to purchase other things, but I want this thing, and what I say, goes." It's the re-routing of money from where people would have spent it to where a bureaucrat thinks it should go. In healthcare in particular (because health is seen as somehow different from other values that people pursue), subsidization is the politician's favorite tool of wealth redistribution. After all, one man's health always trumps another man's wallet, isn't that so? Suddenly your neighbor's erectile function or dysfunction is now your concern.

As the AP report mentions, Congress has tried several times in recent years to end federal subsidies for erectile dysfunction drugs. They have "tried," but have always come up limp. This is because to end a subsidy means to reduce spending—something akin to self-amputation for legislators. Now, however, that the money can be earmarked for another "obviously legitimate" subsidy before it is even freed from its current one, zero spending is really cut and zero power is lost. The spending juggernaut chugs along.

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