There are substantive reasons for this discomfort, not least concerns that Mr. Paulson will pay too much, thus subsidizing giant financial institutions.
This has been a chief concern of Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, but even with the Obama administration's stimulus money, the United States and the West in general spend abysmally small amounts on basic research while spending too much on subsidizing existing technologies.
The city has been criticized for spending too much money to subsidize the team while it had been forced to cut spending on police, libraries and other city services.
Europe, with its tradition of heavily subsidizing farmers, is reluctant to concentrate too much on agriculture and wants to include topics like environmental protection and antitrust policy.
But with trading volumes high, Mr. Schumer argued, the government was collecting far too much money from those fees and using it to subsidize other government operations.
In 1995, he and the Straphangers Campaign unsuccessfully sued the transportation authority, arguing that city riders paid too much for mass transit and that the state overly subsidized the railroads.
I'm paying way too much for insurance while my car sits in the garage, subsidizing some stranger who drives non-stop.
Too much of our government spending amounts to a cross-subsidization program, as federal tax revenue is used to subsidize each state's favorite industry.
The program subsidizes health care for children, and some adults, from families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to be able to afford private insurance.
Developers have argued that tightening the tax-break program too much could slow housing construction; housing advocates say giving tax breaks for market-rate developments is, in effect, subsidizing gentrification.
