Cite as: 533 U. S. 405 (2001)
Breyer, J., dissenting
of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth, 529 U. S. 217, 229 (2000) (indicating that less restrictive rules apply to governmental speech); Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 557, 564 (1980) (commercial speech subject to "mid-level" scrutiny); Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563, 568 (1968) (applying special rules applicable to speech of government employees). Were the Court not to do so—were it to apply the strictest level of scrutiny in every area of speech touched by law—it would, at a minimum, create through its First Amendment analysis a serious obstacle to the operation of well-established, legislatively created, regulatory programs, thereby seriously hindering the operation of that democratic self-government that the Constitution seeks to create and to protect. Cf. Post, The Constitutional Status of Commercial Speech, 48 UCLA L. Rev. 1, 9-10 (2000).
That, I believe, is why it is important to understand that the regulatory program before us is a "species of economic regulation," Wileman, 521 U. S., at 477, which does not "warrant special First Amendment scrutiny," id., at 474. Irrespective of Wileman I would so characterize the program for three reasons.
First, the program does not significantly interfere with protected speech interests. It does not compel speech itself; it compels the payment of money. Money and speech are not identical. Cf. Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U. S. 377, 388-389 (2000); id., at 398 (Stevens, J., concurring) ("Money is property; it is not speech"); id., at 400 (Breyer, J., concurring) ("[A] decision to contribute money to a campaign is a matter of First Amendment concern—not because money is speech (it is not); but because it enables speech"). Indeed, the contested requirement— that individual producers make a payment to help achieve a governmental objective—resembles a targeted tax. See Southworth, 529 U. S., at 241 (Souter, J., joined by Stevens
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