by Matthew Pilling, Guest Author

When I choose to give money or resources to my church, the Red Cross, or any other charitable organization, I am allowed to deduct the value donated from my taxable income.  And, at the end of each year, as I prepare my taxes, I am asked to account for all of my charitable donations.  Turns out that I have been shorting myself—there are plenty of charitable causes that I didn’t even know that I was supporting.

Every year, the government spends billions on charitable causes.  And the billions they spend come right out of our pockets.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all for charity and helping those who stand in need.  But, when the government decides that they will take my money to help every cause under the sun, and do so in a way that wastes significant portions of the pilfered funds, it perplexes me a little.  Not only are they robbing me of my chance to get a tax deduction for a voluntary donation to the same cause, they are robbing the people they are supposedly helping by not being as efficient as private institutions with “donated” funds.

While I can’t list every cause that you and I have donated to through government channels, I will try to give some perspective to the two major ones that were announced in the last 24 hours.

It turns out that I am highly concerned about the wildfires in California.  When I took too long to pull out my check book to try and help the Golden State, President Bush decided he would exercise Executive Privilege and make that move for me.  Once Governor Schwarzenegger declared 12 counties to be in a state of emergency, President Bush decided to get on a plane and head that direction.

When we hear that Bush or other elected representatives go visit a forlorn area, most think “Oh, how nice.  Such compassion”.  Few of us consider that when the president travels, so does his entire entourage.  Now, I don’t know the exact amount they spend on any given trip, but I doubt that they stay at the local motel 6 and dine at McCheapos, if you know what I mean.  And that costs the American tax payer.  With today’s technology, could the president not view the damage on the news or the internet and recognize just as deeply that things are pretty bad?  Would the aid not be given more quickly and effectively if Bush skipped the trip and trusted the word of local professionals who are more familiar with the area and more adept at assessing local needs? 

Even if I was fine with the use of legal plunder for public good, I’d still have problems with this one.  Living in a state that has plenty of its own wildfire problems, I’d prefer to keep my fire-fighting donations local.  Stealing our local resources to deal with someone else’s problems won’t help us curtail the damage when our fires hit.  Perhaps we should have started our fires earlier this year to ensure that we got government help before it runs out. 

It also turns out that I am highly concerned about AIDS in Africa and other areas of the world.  The gravity of the AIDS situation makes it easy for the government to jump to the conclusion that something must be done now.  And I agree that help is needed, and quickly.  But, if I was dying of AIDS and approached you saying that you would have to choose between sustaining your life and using the same resources to sustain mine, which would you choose?  Well, the government doesn’t think that you and I are smart enough to make that choice, so they made it for us. 

On Wednesday, the Senate voted 80-16 to triple the size of PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), a product of the Bush Administration.  The bill has already passed the House and yesterday, the Senate approved the $50 Billion spending plan.  And, both the President and Congress are pretty proud of themselves.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del says that PEPFAR, is “the single most significant thing the president has done.”  NOTHING that this administration has accomplished on our own soil compares to the free-ride we are giving another nation?  Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind says the program “has improved attitudes toward the United States in Africa and other regions.”  Will the same regions feel as friendly when this and similar spending programs bankrupt the ability of the American people to help out?  When the flow of money dries up, does the relationship do so, as well?  After touring Africa earlier this year, President Bush said he was glad for the chance to meet “the patients, including many children, who understand and appreciate America’s generosity.”  The giving away of something that belonged to someone else counts as generosity?

One only needs to look back to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to see that large government aid programs breed corruption on several levels.  A large portion of the money simply doesn’t reach the intended recipients.  That is not to say that private charitable institutions never face the challenge of corruption.  But, the freedom to discriminate between which people and projects one chooses to fund (a freedom that the government doesn’t feel that it has) tends to filter out many of the free loaders.

The Bible says that man should not give “grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”  (2 Corinthians 9:7)  I think that the only thing that would make me a “cheerful giver” would be if the giving wasn’t forced.

Please don’t take this all to mean that I (or other capitalists) don’t care about human suffering and world problems.  I care deeply.  I care so much that I am willing to see that solutions are created and administered in ways that don’t violate principle and actually work.  Violation of principle will never bring sustainable relief to any situation, no matter how grave and urgent the situation appears.   And government spending on relief programs, foreign or domestic, is a violation of principle.

Sources:

Juliana Barbassa, “Bush set to survey Northern California wildfires”, Associated Press, Thu Jul 17, 2008 (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080717/ap_on_re_us/wildfires)

Jim Abrams, “Senate agrees to triple anti-AIDS funding”, Associated Press, Thu Jul 16, 2008 (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jb7JQ6VIFJu7UQB0ElCfWnkvUAGwD91V8JQ00)

Hope Yen, “Corruption: Katrina Fraud Ballooning Past $1 Billion”, NY Transfer News, Associated Press, Dec 25, 2006 (http://www.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20061225/054855.html)

(Matthew Pilling is a member of the FreeCapitalist movement known as the Canadian Capitalist. Despite his time in the Great White North, Matthew loves America and all that it stands for. He lives with his wife and two children in Taylorsville and works in finance.)