Government, Charities, and the Poor

It is wisely ordained by nature that private connections should prevail over universal views and considerations, otherwise our affections and action would be dissipated and lost for want of a proper limited object.

-David Hume


In 2008, the United Way had to cut its budget. It came up $500,000 short in its fundraising goal of $12 million. It has come up short the last few years. In its mission statement, the United Way states its dedication to improving the lives of the unfortunate by providing education, income stability, and health care to those in need. While the federal government did not provide a mission statement, it too seeks to provide education, income stability, and health care to those in need.

The federal government budgeted $589 billion for social and welfare programs in 2008, (GDP in 2008 was $1.4 trillion). Only five percent of the almost $12 million raised by the United Way went to bureaucratic overhead. Only six percent of the funds raised by the Red Cross went to bureaucratic overhead. No figures were available as to how much of the $589 billion spent by the federal government went to bureaucratic overhead. The government does not keep track of those figures. Whatever the percentage was, you can be assured that it was greater than 6%.

$589 billion is a lot of money. You would think that spending $589 billion in one year would substantially improve the lives of those in need. But it didn't. Nor did the hundreds of billions of dollars spent the year before, or the billions before that. The government spends trillions and poverty grinds on. People are still hungry, homeless, and in need of medical care. National health care will be of little help to the poor. They do not have insurance so subsidies and insurance market places will make no difference to their plight.

If one tenth of the money spent by the government on the poor and those in need was instead given to proven charities such as the United Way, the Red Cross, or Habitat for Humanity, the lives of tens of millions of Americans would be significantly improved. Habitat for Humanity could provide tens of thousands of quality homes to those that need them. The government can only provide subsidized housing and rent assistance for homes and apartments for those able to navigate the bureaucratic maze. Once they receive assistance, it will be for homes and apartments in neighborhoods that no government official or lobbyist would ever consider living in.

There is no glory in letting charities and private organizations take care of the needs of Americans unless there is a photo opportunity to be had. There is no control either. The government is reluctant to let people take care of themselves and each other. The government wants to be needed. It needs to be needed. And so it insists on providing services no one on Capitol Hill would ever dream of availing themselves of.

Services provided by the government are at best cumbersome and inefficient, as anyone that has had to avail themselves of those services can testify. At worst they are bureaucratic swamps virtually impossible to navigate by those who seek to take advantage of them. The appeal of those services is the control they offer to government officials and lobbyists. For them, the prize is the power to manipulate society to their preferred goals. They measure their effectiveness by numbers and dollars. If people are helped, all the better for their newsletters and press releases.

There is little the government can offer the poor and the struggling that private organizations and charities cannot provide better. The thing is, you have to give to charities. They will not take. Government, on the other hand, will take. Many people tolerate government taking their money to help those in need because it is convenient. The poor and suffering are helped with no effort on the part of those paying their taxes. They simply pay their taxes and sleep better knowing those in need are being tended to.

When it comes down to it, liberals just don't trust people. They believe that if they take their hands off the rudder, society would revert to the petty, racist, homophobic, greedy, sexist, and selfish thing it was before they came along. If the government didn't collect taxes and help those in need, those in need would not be tended to: they would starve and sleep in the streets. People can not be trusted to take care of each other. For liberals, the only thing that can be counted to keep people from becoming heartless savages is government, specifically, a liberal government.

Charities have long existed. They have long helped people. But you have to give to charities. They do not take. You do not have to give to government. The government takes. It may be more convenient to let the government take care of those in need, but there is no virtue in it.

Tax Breaks

In this morning's Dallas Morning News was an article concerning tax breaks. In the article, it was mentioned how the earned income tax credit alone will cost the federal government roughly $49 billion in 2008. Tax beaks will "cost" the federal government billions of dollars this year. As is common, the topic of tax breaks was discussed as if the government was paying out money. It is not. Lowering taxes is simply the government taking less of what does not really belong to it in the first place.

When the government lowers taxes or grants tax breaks, the money is not lost. It certainly is not wasted. It stays with those who earned it. The money retained is either saved or spent. In either case, the economy benefits. The only thing that is lost is the government's ability to spend that money.

Many are critical of the idea of tax cuts. They argue that reducing taxes will only make the debt problem worse. They are right. But the massive federal debt is not due to deficient tax collection: tax revenue has been going up for years. It is due to reckless overspending by the government. The government has taken a spend first, collect later approach to managing the nation's affairs. The government determines how much it wants to spend before it determines how it will pay for it. Whatever it decides it wants to spend is spent. The difference between income and expenditures is worked out afterward through raising taxes and borrowing money.

Tax cuts cost the government nothing. Spending money costs the government everything. The government is not in debt because it is not collecting enough in taxes. It is in debt because it has been spending more than it has been collecting. To cite the national debt as a reason to resist tax cuts or to raise taxes is to punish tax payers for the government's fiscal recklessness.

If people are serious about demanding tax cuts, they will have to wean themselves off government and demand less from it. There is little indication that is likely to happen. Each year, people become more dependent on government and expect more from it: and that costs money. That is just fine with Washington. For many politicians in Washington, a nation dependent on government is priceless.