But most of the NGOs have to at least play ball with the local governments to be allowed to operate at all. So I'm curious what the support is for the idea that private charity is less likely to end up confiscated by warlords than government aid.
BUT there are also limits to that charitable giving. If charitable aid was so much better or efficient than government aid at doing things like addressing poverty, than presumably we wouldn't really need government aid. But we do. The power of taxation is simply much more powerful than the power of voluntary giving.
Also, traditionally (and unsurprisingly) the wealthy have been the biggest source of charitable giving, but the tax changes during the first Trump administration substantially reduced the amount that the wealthy could write off as tax deductions, with the predictable effect of reducing the amount of giving from the wealthy.
By paragraph:
Anecdotally, it's that I give monthly to a couple of organizations I've vetted as much as I can for a guy in my position, and I know they mainly operate without the consent of the government in countries they operate in. Or what passes for government. One of them rescues slaves, frequently in direct violation of the country's laws about slavery. I'm also familiar with many church charity arms, Catholic, Protestant, and Evangelical, and I don't think they are dealing with governments nearly like funds that come from a government. Objectively (well, I say that), it's that our government is going to primarily deal with other governments or NGO's, which deal with governments. You don't have to have that step when you give money to nuns to go pass out food and water somewhere. And as far as I can tell, they often don't. It stands to reason that bypassing at least one government step is going to reduce the amount of hands in the cookie jar. For example, one country I'm pretty familiar with, Ukraine, is going to rob pieces of the pie at every step and stage, because they're just that corrupt. Ukraine isn't going to go looking for church groups and steal their funds, so having Ukraine's government approval to operate does not mean Ukraine is stealing your money. But if those funds go through any entity of the Ukrainian government, they're going to take a cut and say thanks for being dumb enough to pass the plate in front of me. It's a reasonable assumption to presume there are other countries work the same way. Orphanages are the worst....absolutely sickening the way Ukraine treats its orphans. If you go help Ukrainian orphans directly, they're not going to get in your way.....much. If you give to the Ukrainian orphanages, or the entities of government that controls their orphanages, you've wasted your money, those poor kids are never getting a dime's benefit from it. It will go to a bureaucrat's new car.
The "power" of taxation is less important than the "effectiveness" of taxation. This is a longer conversation than I can type here, so if we ever meet I'd be happy to start at the basic level I'd need to in order to make a case. Without much historical or philosophical support: We needed government aid so much less in the past, and the increased "necessity" correlates to a society increasingly unmoored from a Christian ethos. i.e., people are less and less willing to help their neighbor, and I'd rather be spearheading a movement for Christian values than handing more power and money to the government. But mostly it's a matter of framing the question correctly. You're saying if charitable aid were more efficient than the government, then we wouldn't need government aid. That does not necessarily follow. Being more efficient does not mean sufficient for the challenge, so at best that's an argument that government taxation, presumably for charity, is necessary, but not an argument that it's more efficient. And I've seen no evidence to suggest the government is efficient at anything. If private charity is more efficient, then would less taxation mean more charitable aid needs are met? Your guess is as good as mine, but it's a reasonable assumption.
I'm not familiar with the charity cap you're talking about, so I don't know if that was something in the tax code, a congressional law that was passed, or an EO, or what. More relevant, I don't know specifically what kind of giving was intended to be curbed, and what is being curbed. As in, were there wealthy people who were exploiting loopholes meant for charitable giving and they were using the deductions another way? If it's really a matter of limiting charitable contribution write-offs, I'd need to know the rationale, because on its face that seems dumb, and without knowing more, I'd be in favor of restoring the bigger write-offs, and the charitable contributions that go with them. But your first point was an important one. Wealthy people give more. That's exactly my point. The less the government takes from us, the more we give. It makes no sense to say "wealthy people give more" and also say "the government should take more from us for charitable redistribution."
