Should I Be Grateful If a Thief Returns Half the Money S/He Stole?

Consider the following scenario:

A thief steals $2000 from me. I then spend $500 to retrieve the money from the thief, who also spends $500 trying to keep me from retrieving my money. In the end, I get $1500 back from the thief, for a net return (after my own expenses) of $1000.

I should be grateful and thank the thief? Lots of people seem to think so.

At least that's what this article in our local newspaper seemed to be saying.

Arena gets $2M boost

Central Huron benefits from Federal-Provincial grant

The Clinton arena is on the receiving end of $2 million in infrastructure grants for a $3-million renovation plan.

Local dignitaries, including Huron-Bruce MP Ben Lobb and Huron-Bruce MPP Carol Mitchell, were on hand at the official announcement of joint federal and provincial funding to improve community recreational infrastructure through the Recreational Infrastructure Canada program and Recreation Ontario.

“This is a great thing,” says Central Huron Reeve Bert Dykstra. “It helps communities to grow and foster recreation as a great part of that growth. It keeps people in the community and keeps people healthy.”...

The federal and provincial gubmnts tax us. And then we use tonnes of scarce resources that could have been used for something else to compete with people from other municipalities to try to get some of our (and their) tax dollars back.

It's a negative sum game and a classic example of the prisoners' dilemma: if we don't play it, we still have to pay our taxes but other municipalities will get the money. And if we all play the game, the size of the pie gets smaller because the gubmnts use some of our tax dollars to assess our rent-seeking applications for funding and because each municipality spends money on the rent-seeking funding applications.

 If we all kept our money, and if we refused to let federal and provincial gubmnts fund local projects, the municipalities would all have more money in total. And then the local gubmnt officials could make it clear what the local taxes might or might not be paying for. Getting the feds and province involved just increases the obfuscation of what is really going on.

Meanwhile, the federal and provincial politicians show up and take credit for this farce. What if, instead, they stood up and said,

We took your money in the form of taxes, and now after considering all the costs involved, we're giving half of it back to you. Aren't we great?

They'd be laughed out of town. And they should be.