Last week in this space, I lamented a couple of the routine, tiny steps that carry us further down the path to bigger and more intrusive government.

By giving state food stamp programs greater access to personal information about Americans, Congress had masked the cost of rescuing Americans from Lebanon. The result was a bill that expanded the federal role in international rescue while spreading personal information about us a little further.

This weekend I discovered the rest of the story. In a separate bill, Congress made available yet more funds for rescuing Americans from Lebanon. Additional cost, 17 cents per U.S. family.

As Tom Palmer pointed out, Lebanon has been a dangerous place as a matter of common sense and announced U.S. policy for quite some time. I suspect that he, like I do, wants Americans to travel far and wide, experience the world, and make friends. But it’s not the federal government’s responsibility to subsidize that process by rescuing Americans when they encounter danger. Americans who need rescue should foot the bill.