It’s a popular right wing/conservative talking point. Government doesn’t help people. We’d all be better off to let charities and the good natures of our neighbors take care of us in bad times. Trouble is, when bad times hit, less people step up to the plate to help others:
As the recession took hold, most Americans cut back on volunteer work and other civic activities, according to a survey conducted for the National Conference on Citizenship. […]
The survey found that 72 percent of Americans said they were devoting less time to volunteering and other civic activities, like providing food and shelter to those in need and participating in public discussions like town-hall-style meetings. […]
The decline in volunteerism is not good news for nonprofits, which are relying on volunteers to help offset declining revenues. In a study by the Listening Post Project, affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, about 4 in 10 of the responding nonprofits said they had increased their use of volunteers, and almost half said they planned to use more volunteers over the next year.
It really shouldn’t come as any big surprise. The last time we had a recession close to this big (the early 80’s) volunteerism dropped also. When times get really tough, people’s own lives take precedence. Particularly those who are unemployed or underemployed or fear that their jobs are at risk. And economists are projecting high rates of unemployment will continue for the foreseeable future.
So, big business can’t save us. Wall Street and it’s resident Masters of the Universe got us into this mess and their own greed and selfishness prohibits them from helping anyone other than themselves and their stockholders. They’ll gladly take handouts/bailouts/corporate welfare from government when they “screw the pooch” but don’t expect them to use any of that bailout money to help the common man, woman or child. And large non-profit charitable organizations are just not large enough to deal with the extent of the economic suffering which has been inflicted upon millions of Americans as a result of the crash of the Free Market’s unregulated joy ride. And thanks to that crash many local and even state governments are in dire straits as well (California anyone?).
Say what you will Republicans, but the only one left standing who can do anything about the mess we’ve landed in thanks to the policies your philosophy of small government created is the Federal Government under President Barack Obama and a Democratic majority Congress. You know, the entity whose founding document requires it to “provide for the general welfare?” So unless you have the billions of dollars in some off shore tax haven needed to re-start our economic engine, and are willing to provide them to the rest of us out of the goodness of your heart (like that would ever happen), please, just get out of the way and let them clean up the disaster that an out of control, unregulated private financial sector has wrought. You’ll have plenty of time to bitch about how awful Big Government is in the future, but for now just shut your pie holes.*
* I know. Another fantasy that isn’t ever going to come true. But hey, it sure felt good to say it.
I think they should then give up our socialized police force and submit to one run by charities.
Wouldn’t that make sense? Lower their taxes and let them buy their own police.
Of course, we’d have to wall them off somewhere, so their ignorance didn’t imperil the rest of us.
Don’t tempt them. They would love private police.
This lie was illustrated perfectly at the recent town hall where a distraught woman was telling Sen. Coburn that her husband, who had suffered a traumatic brain injury, couldn’t get insurance.
He offered some lame moralizing about how we should all help each other…neighbors helping neighbors he said.
As Connie Schultz, Pulitzer prize winning columnist said: “what does that even mean? Are they supposed to throw bake sales to pay for this man’s health care?”
I’d like to see Coburn at a bake sale.
What conservatives seem to miss is that “we the people” are the government. It is through government social programs that we, as good neighbors, can most effeciently and effectively pool our resources and help each other.
Mmm am standing on my head and still can’t fathom how giving the tax breaks to the biggest pockets has encouraged them to take care of the un-rich of us. Even Bill Gates and/or Oprah have demonstrated a perverse desire to spend their charity funds where they want to (go figure) and oftentimes those funds just don’t stay on this continent.
The wealthy can offer a unique hand in cutting through the red tape to meet very specific needs. But to give them a tax break and simply expect that they will turn around and choose to help out or that they can do the heavy lifting of infrastructure rebuiding, transportation & long term structuring is nuts.
This country has a history of supporting charities around the world, something to be proud of, but never to be a substitute for good government.
How do I know that the Masters of the Universe are fundamentally stupid at businesses decisions?
None of them have figured out that the best return on investment and return of value to their shareholders that they can make right now is:
Paying their taxes, even maybe overpaying their taxes
Paying employees higher wages and salaries
I’ll leave the economic reasoning to you but it’s not too hard an it has to do with that bogeyman — “deficits” and that other “d” word “demand”.
Charity took a big hit when the Inheritance tax was repealed. Why give to charity and make a name for your family (i.e. Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation) when you can finance Junior’s coke habit after you die?