Saturday, January 16, 2010

The U.S. Shouldn't Be a Charitable Organization

Within the past couple of days, President Obama has pledged 100 million dollars to the aid of Haiti. Now, I'm not against helping at all, but I am against a president pledging our tax dollars to do it. I heard a guy say, that he was all excited to help out, but then heard about the $100 million and figured, "looks like the government is taking care of it", which is the problem with governmental charity---it stops individual charity, or severely reduces it.
I must admit that when I heard about the gift we are all a part of giving through our taxes, I felt that there was less desperate need for my personal donation.
There's a second reason for my uneasiness at this transaction. That is, it's not possible for us to do this for every nation that has trouble, unless we are prepared for a huge tax increase to pay for it. With a monstrous tax increase already on the table because of the out of control spending by this administration--that seems like something we just can't afford to get into.

Let private citizens contribute and only private citizens. Let the government step in with the military or whatever to help in the distribution, and the heavy equipment needed, but donations will stream in from charitable people everywhere, unless they think, as myself, and the guy mentioned above, that the government is doing it for them.

No comments: