Government Welfare vs Private Charities

Government Welfare:
1. Are funded by taxes collected from all taxpayers.
2. Have become viewed as entitlements.
3. Aid the election of politicians who promote such programs.
4. Often do very little to entice recipients to do more than acquire employment which would not reduce or eliminate their government assistance.
5. Payments are based on broad National/State statistics.
6. Recipients are most thankful to government and politicians who they see supportive of their provisions.
7. When people feel they are not getting enough, their anger is directed at society and politicians who try to promote fiscal responsibility.
8. Government can increase aid by borrowing with no regard for revenue income providing the means.
9. Any debt incurred is passed on to all taxpayers regardless of income, including those yet born.
10. Requires a large number of government employees, with wages, benefits and retirements paid by taxpayers.
11. Allows government to create problems which become viewed as solvable only by government.
12. People in need can remain living where it is unlikely they can eliminate need of government assistance.

Private Charities:
1. Are funded by individuals free choice.
2. Are seen as needs requiring help from others.
3. Provide aid to persons based needs, with little or no regard to politics.
4. Has the primary intent of making those in need fully self supporting.
5. Monetary funding is based on individual needs, which in some cases may require no money at all.
6. Recipients only have the charities and contributing members of their society to thank.
7. The charities and contributing members of society are left free to set limits and requirements to assure the aid it put to good use.
8. Charities can only provide aid within the means they are able to acquire.
9. The means acquired by Private Charities clearly places the responsibility on those who can most afford to fund them.
10. Could be regulated by government to assure a very minimum of the donations are distributed to those in need, and primarily work using unpaid volunteers.
11. Allows societies to work more closely with their members finding ways to make those in need net contributors, or at least self sufficient, where possible.
12. People in need may have to expand their search in order to become self sufficient or at least find acceptable means to reduce their dependency on charity.

 

Yep, there's only so much room under the bridge.

 

Big Government = Helps me once I'm deemed disabled and unable to be employed.

Charity = Might or might not help me once I'm deemed disabled and unable to be employed.

I'll take BIG GOVERNMENT first then hit up charities if needed they can and should work together.

 

What government gives to one, they must first take from another. No, you don't have to be disabled and unable to be employed. There are some 70 different government programs out there that require zero disability at all before they start making you dependent on them.

 

For SSI ,yes, I need to be deemed unemployable to a modest standard the ability to earn at the Federal Poverty Line. I've got mine extended for three years and an increase of my SSI benefits from $555.50 to $723.00 and with it my Medicaid and Food Stamp benefits so am doing okay and why would I risk trying to work and lose my Medicaid with the kind of medical costs I would have without that benefit. So yes I don't mind big government welfare. And vote to keep it.

I appreciate taxpayers paying for this but even my State Department of Vocational Rehabilitation tested me and their experts said I can't be trained up to do any kind of job, so what is wrong with getting government support when one needs it? I'm the kind of person the benefits are there for.

 

Excluding the itemized lists, that are erroneous in many statement, let's cut to the chase by addressing what welfare really is regardless of the source of that assistance to begin with.

Welfare assistance mitigates the effects of poverty.

So what is poverty in today's world? Because we live in an economic system exclusively based upon "commerce" the term "poverty" relates to a shortfall in income necessary to meet the mandatory expenditures of the person/household. In short if the person/household has $25,000 in mandatory expenditures (not discretionary expenditures) but only have $20,000 in income then the person/household is living in poverty and requires $5,000 in supplemental "external" income, regardless of whether it comes from private charity and/or government welfare assistance. They require that $5,000 just to "survive" in our society.

The mandatory expenditures are referred to as the "minimum cost of living" but for many years this was not a "quantified value" and instead was subjectively established. For example the "official poverty level" established by the US government is subjective because it only addressed limited mandatory expenditures of the person/household as opposed to addressing all of the mandatory expenditures of the person/household. Fortunately the brilliant minds at MIT took the time and effort to quantify the "minimum cost of living" in their MIT Cost of Living Calculator so we have a much more informed source of information where we can establish what "poverty" really is.

http://livingwage.mit.edu/pages/about

Because MIT has expended the time and resources necessary we no longer have to live in a world of "voodoo" economics where the "cost of living" was subjective and instead have objective criteria we can use in identifying both "poverty" and the "extent of the poverty" that the person/household is experiencing.

Welfare assistance, regardless of whether it's publically and/or privately funded, must by necessity make up for the shortfall between "income" and the "mandatory minimum cost of living" of the person/household.

Welfare assistance, regardless of source, "mitigates the effects of the poverty" by providing supplemental income to fund the mandatory expenditures but never reduces the poverty. Reducing the poverty can only be accomplished by an increase in the income of the person/household. The person/household with $25,000 in mandatory expenditures will always require $5,000 in "welfare assistance" so long as they only have $20,000 in income. Only if their income increases to $25,000 will they not require the welfare assistance.

Fundamentally "poverty" places a financial burden on society to make up for the shortfall of the person/household's income relative to their "mandatory" minimum cost of living.

As noted in the OP this can come from two sources, public welfare and private charities, and it would always be preferable for "private charities" to provide the assistance.

There's only one problem and that is historically there has never been any economic society where private charities have been able to fund the financial burden imposed by poverty within the society. Never once in recorded history have private charities been able to carry the financial burden created by poverty within the society. It's just never happened.

Basically we have two shortfalls. The first is the shortfall on personal/household income to fund the mandatory expenditures and then we also have the shortfall of private charities to make up the difference between the personal/household income necessary to meet the mandatory expenditures.

This is historically where government was forced to intervene to make up for the shortfall of private charities by providing government welfare assistance. It required the government, in addition to the private assistance, to fund the financial burden placed upon society where the person/household had a shortfall in income relative to the mandatory expenditures they were required to fund.

As a card-carrying Libertarian I highly support the Libertarian Party platform where we need to increase private assistance to those in need as well as addressing the poverty to reduce the necessity for the assistance. Currently the Federal government is providing about $500 billion per year in welfare assistance (excluding Social Security that's also welfare assistance) that's also supplemented by State welfare assistance so how do we increase private charitable donations by perhaps $1 trillion a year and ensure it goes to those households that require the assistance so that we can reduce the necessity for government to provide that assistance?

Obviously the best possible solution is to reduce the poverty but that requires increased compensation for those living in poverty. For political reasons there are a lot of people opposed to increasing compensation for those living in poverty today.

 

A significant percentage of those collecting government welfare assistance are working households and it isn't the government that makes them dependent upon the government for the assistance. It's they're employers that don't provide them with enough compensation to survive without assistance.

 

One of the underpinnings of progressive liberalism is their belief that all people are inherently evil, and will not "do the right thing" unless they are forced to so by government. They do not believe individual charity exists. They have no faith that their fellow man can be compassionate, unless government forces them to do so.

 

I agree with some of your criticisms in general, but two things I want to point out: 1) Many private charities do, in fact, operate with government grant money in their accounts; and 2) Private charities have a track record of not addressing the needs adequately which is why the government became involved in the first place. Survey history classes do a poor job when it comes to the period between the end of the Civil War and the early 20th Century. During that period, there was a lot of economic turmoil and they had the "private charity is best" attitude. It failed and failed miserably. There was growing discontent among the masses and democracy itself was endangered by the inability of the needs to be met. There was a lot of worker discontent and quasi-marxist/anarchist attitudes were becoming increasingly popular.

 

You certainly have a warped vivid imagination.

 

I'm curious: What, in your opinion, would happen if the 1964 CRA were to be repealed? Would we return to Jim Crow style segregation?

 

Perhaps. Certainly may trend in that direction.
Not sure what your point is.

 

My point is that progressives and liberals overwhelmingly believe that people must be constrained by force of government to force them to do the right thing. Your answer to the above question is atypically conservative. Most every liberal to whom I've posed that question believes that only the CRA, and other government anti-discrimination law, prevents an immediate reversion to racism and segregation.

That is why I believe that one of the underpinnings of progressive liberalism is their belief that all people are inherently evil, and will not "do the right thing" unless they are forced to so by government.

 

That certainly still exists. And pockets of the country will likely go back that direction. But I also think humanity has progressed to not be so guillible to think skin color determines a person.
But, Jim Crowe were laws put out by gov't in the 1st place, to segregate.

And in your 1st post, you said 'all' and inherently evil. I will say some.

We still see discrimination crap to this day. Look at all the LGBT threads and folks that would like to shove them back into the closest so they don't have to deal with them.

 

It is my belief that ANY businessman who hung a "Whites Only" sign on his door, if it were legal today, would be eaten alive by his competition inside of a few months. There would be one or two who try it, but we have moved past that time as a society. Most liberals I have spoken to do not believe that to be true.

 

In real life? Or on this anonymous forum where the extremes are voiced.

 

Either, in my experience.

 

And landowners take it all anyway.

Whereas:

And landowners take it all anyway.

 

??????

 

One of the problems of social conservatism is their belief that people are inherently good, and will "do the right thing" but even Adam Smith, one of the founders of capitalist economic philosophy, established that the capitalist only provided a benefit to society by accident and never by intent.

Let us remember that the vast majority of the poverty in American, that creates the necessity for "welfare/charity" assistance, is due to under-compensation (i.e. compensation below the cost of living) by the owners of enterprise (capitalists) to their employees.

If all employers were "good" and "did the right thing" by providing "cost of living compensation" then poverty (that requires welfare/charity to mitigate it's effects) would be virtually non-existent in America today.

This is a false statement. Everyone understands and believes in individual charity but what we also know is that it doesn't come even close to providing the necessary financial aid required to mitigate the effects of poverty by itself. The social conservative simply doesn't understand the scope of the "poverty" in America today that imposes a huge financial burden on society.

If we use income tax statistics then about 47% of all households in American are living "at or below the cost of living" and they're basically living in poverty and require external financial assistance to survive. Poverty is quantifiable because every dollar of income for a household below the "cost of living" requires external financial assistance (welfare or charity) to mitigate. As a nation we don't even come close to mitigating the full cost of poverty with both private charities and government welfare assistance.

So it's all nice and good to advocate for private charities but instead of disparaging the assistance provided for by government welfare assistance we need to encourage people to donate more to the private charities so that they can reduce the necessity for the government welfare assistance. We must address the total financial burden imposed on society by poverty and arguably we need to increase the assistance from both private charities and government welfare because we're not fully meeting that financial burden today.

 

That was the exact reasoning for why democrats started Jim Crowe laws. They haven't changed, just their tactics.

 

You haven't noticed that all the trillions spent on the poor, whether by government or private charities, have gone to landowners? The poor certainly don't have it. They are still poor. But landowners have got rich without lifting a finger.

How else do you think that result was effected?

 

No spending is mandatory. If you cannot produce or convince others to give you what you need to survive, you don't get a license to thieve from others. Crawl into a hole and die.

 

If you're referring to rent, I'm sure some of the trillions spent went to land owners, and rightfully so.

 

So the infant that doesn't have the ability to produce or convince others that they need food to survive should crawl in a hole and die?

While not mandatory we have moral obligations to help provide for others that are in need. Only those without any morality at all would suggest that someone should starve to death, die from lack or medical care, or be forced to live outside ultimately dying from exposure. Society itself cannot exist without morality as a fundamental guiding light that creates obligations upon the members of society.

Of course there are always those that lack any morality that will simply let others die while they live a life of relative luxury. When we talk about the "givers and takers" it's those that have more than they need but refuse to help those in need that are really the "takers" in our society. For them it's "All about me" because they lack any moral obligation.