A few days ago I was thinking about the difference between giving money to charities and giving money
to the government to, in turn, give to charitable efforts. It is basically the difference between wholesale and retail donating. In other words, the more directly I can give money or time to the people who need the charity, the more value *they* get per dollar or hour that I put in, and the more it is worth to *me* to contribute.
Socialists, liberals, and several others in the U.S. have the impression that the people of this nation, if given the choice of what to do with their own money, would give very little if anything to charitable causes. These individuals feel that it is the government’s responsibility to redistribute wealth in the country to make sure that this supposed uncharitable public is forced into the otherwise morally-driven act of giving to others.
Unfortunately, those who have been taught to assume people are inherently not charitable seem to be completely oblivious the many existing private organizations to which US citizens give generously and voluntarily every day. Even if they are aware of this, though, they present as a counter-argument that there are certain charities that need more balance and more resources. They would prefer the government step in to give more of the peoples’ money to causes in which they are not (yet) giving enough. In other words, these people would prefer to legislate who gets our charitable money instead of letting us choose for ourselves and let society work it out without government interference.
There are three glaring problems with the government becoming the charitable “middle-man” that these highly-vocal socialist thinkers do not seem to be considering:
(1) The more “middle men” you put into a money trail, the higher the cost for less benefit in the end.
For example, if the government wants to create a healthcare system funded by taxpayers, they have to first take money from the taxpayers in a much larger amount than the actual cost of healthcare so that they can pay for the bureaucracy required to get the money, establish a budget, regulate and manage a nation-wide system of thousands of government healthcare workers, continually determine who qualifies for free or discounted care on an individual basis, and recruiting people willing to make less money in a profession that cost them several years and many thousands of dollars to launch. At best, of the taxes used to run such a system, even if the government could operate with an overhead of the average 501(c) organization, only about 3% will actually go to providing lower-cost healthcare to those in need. Meanwhile, the problems of the actual cost of the healthcare and prescription drugs have still not been addressed. Do you think the U.S. is going to have a better overall cost for healthcare if the government introduces a new 97% overhead at a mandatory cost for everyone?
(2) The more the government takes from us, the less we have to give to others directly.
Frankly, if the government keeps taking more of my money for more and more charitable causes, I am going to have to stop giving all together because I will not have any money left to give. I’m sure many tax-paying U.S. citizens feel similarly every April 15th. (Note that tax deductions for charitable donations have limits that ensure the government still gets a share of what you earn.)
(3) A government-led charitable support system encourages the attitude of, “Well, I don’t have to do anything for anyone, the Government will do it for me.”
Because the government has already stepped into charitable roles so much since the federal and state governments imposed income taxes over the last century, this attitude perpetuates in a cycle: the government is asked to give more, the government takes more from its citizens so it has money to give, the government gives out a small portion of what it takes in and convinces people it is working, the citizens have less of their own resources for taking care of themselves and others, and then the government is asked to give more… and the cycle continues while the government gets bigger and bigger.
I would like to see the U.S. public being educated on *both sides* of every socialist-driven program before they are asked to support it, with all the cards on the table for how much it will cost. Would you donate a retail cost of 25% of your income if less than 1% actually went to people who needed it (including yourself), with the rest going to the people who are simply paid to be the “middle men” for your 25%? I know I wouldn’t voluntarily give to a charity who operates with the efficiency of our government, and yet there are people who want to take away my choice to give that same money directly to those in need.
In my opinion, it is time to break the cycle and start trusting U.S. citizens to do what they *truly* feel is right with the money that they earn.
