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Bryan Griffin: Involuntary Giving Is Not Kindness

People love to give.

There are religious, cultural, and economic imperatives to give. And, it feels good.

Americans gave $427.71 billion in 2018 according to the National Philanthropic Trust’s Charitable Giving Statistics. This was a .7% increase from 2017. Charitable giving was 2.1% of the American gross domestic product in 2018.

In fact, for the last forty years, total giving was at or above 2% GDP.

High-net worth American households gave an average of $29,269 per family to charity in 2017. Average American households gave about $2,514 on average.

Over 1.5 million charitable organizations exist in the U.S.

Americans are also giving with their time. 30% of the American adult population volunteer time. The same National Philanthropic Trust’s Charitable Giving Statistics values the total 2017 volunteer hours accrued at $167 billion dollars ($24.69 per volunteer hour).

Billionaires are a big source of American giving. The nation’s top 50 donors gave $7.8 billion to charitable causes in 2018.

American companies – typically through goodwill lines – raised $21 billion in 2018.

American foundations gave $75.86 billion in 2018.

The church raised upwards of $120 billion in 2018.

The total dollar value of giving last year, including both money and time, exceeded $590 billion.

And these are just statistics from America. We are a generous country.

All of this giving is done outside of, and on top of government mandate.

Speaking of government support, the 2018 combined welfare budget in America ran us about $349 billion, not including Medicaid.

The point I want to illustrate is this: our society has the capacity to raise enough money to largely support those in need voluntarily.

Yet our system is designed in such a way to rely only upon charity by force. And we still go above and beyond with our giving.

I find it an incredibly weak argument when people contend that the poor will never have their needs met if the government served a smaller, more limited purpose.

However, Democrats are going a step farther these days. Their talking points are not just about helping people when needed, but forcefully equalizing wealth in society.

The left believes that the forced redistribution of wealth is not only charitable of society, but the “right” thing to do. Conversely, billionaires “shouldn’t exist.” Nevermind the giving and nevermind the jobs and wages they have made possible with their fortunes. (70% of American billionaires created their own fortunes.)

Socialism can never win a moral argument.

Charity and good will happen outside of the government telling people they have to participate. Government giving is involuntary giving. Involuntary giving is not kindness nor generosity and can never be sustainable.

Most government welfare programs have incentive structures that encourage dependence. If you start to make more, find a job, or find a way out of your circumstances, government entitlements are revoked. Thus, people are encouraged to take a nominal handout over seeking life-changing solutions.

Also, since enacted largely in the 1960s, government welfare spending as a percentage of GDP has risen. Year after year, the government continues to allocate more of its budget to welfare and entitlement spending to cover the needs it continues to identify among society.

One of my first jobs was working for a private charitable company called United Way. Each year, the organization identified needs specific to the local population it served, raised money among its home community, and found other charities focused on supporting those needs. Then, it funded the program (not the entity) that sought to solve the identified problem, with rigorous accountability standards. If the program didn’t produce results, it was no longer funded.

For example, the most common cause of truancy identified in our region was toothache. Low-income child dentistry programs were identified and funded until the county saw a marked improvement in children showing up to school.

This is how private charity meets actual success and beats government welfare by every metric. Private charities, accountable to donors and that want to compete for charitable giving dollars, ensure success.

Government programs are notorious for low accountability and few if any examples of ending programs that don’t work. This means a portion of the money that we are forced to give never ends up helping anyone in need.

In many ways, our welfare system is like our education system. Throwing more money at the problem has not and will not fix it. And in a government-mandated transfer of wealth, there is no innovation or accountability in the process that can lead to the fundamental, transformational changes needed for success.

Eventually, we will run out of money to throw at never-ending problems.

I’m not suggesting we scrap government safety nets as a measure of last resort. However, we need to revolutionize the way we address problems and shortcomings in society if we really want to make a difference. What if we focused entitlement reform on enhancing and incentivizing the work that private charity already does? What if the government was designed to encourage society to tackle issues ourselves and stepped in only where necessary? And what if we charitable givers had more money to give and more choice as to where the money goes?

We’ve tried the alternative. Government fails where the market can work.

Bryan Griffin of the London Center for Policy Research is a lawyer and author who specializes in American policy in the Middle East.

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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