I was thinking out loud the other day and started wondering about welfare, charity, etc. I have read a lot recently on these topics and have quite a few opinions related to them myself, but this thought process was like an epiphany. I read an article somewhere that stated that the average charitable giving from Americans was 3%. I don't know if this is true, but it sounds reasonable, and the article gave citations. After all, many people don't give anything, so they make up for those who give a lot. At any rate, this led me to wonder what would happen if we all gave like we should. As a Christian, I believe Christians are called to give of their time, talents and blessings (financial and otherwise) in order to help those less fortunate. The common amount cited in church is a tithe, or 10 percent. Now, not everybody is a Christian, but most people claim they believe we should all do our part in "helping" the poor. In fact, this often results in people saying we should support certain politicians, political parties and government policies in order to achieve this result. So, I got to thinking and below is the result of that thought process.
What if we required all Americans to give a certain portion of their income to charity? Well, Americans total income last year was 9.78 trillion dollars according to one source. There are several other sources that show different amounts over time, but this was the most recent number I could find. The total spent by the federal government on Welfare was 452 billion dollars according to usgovernmentspending.com. Taking the average charitable giving of Americans of about 3% as stated above, I started wondering why we weren't helping more Americans? I have nothing to back this up, but I decided that a LOT of Americans support causes overseas. There is nothing wrong with that, but it diminishes the amount of charity available to other Americans. This brought me to this thought. If we do away with Welfare and just require everyone to give a certain percentage of their income to charities HERE IN THE U.S., what would that percentage need to be.
In order to properly calculate this, we have to take something else into account as well. Some studies have shown that federal welfare spending has overhead of 70% on average, whereas private charities have overhead of only about 30% on average. This makes private charities significantly more efficient than government. That must be taken into account when trying to determine the percentage above.
So, for math ease, let us start with 10%. At requiring 10% (I get this from the tithe) from all Americans be given to a charity of our choice (not distributed by the government), we end up with about 978 billion dollars going to charities. Since 30 percent would be overhead based on efficiency studies, that leaves about 684 billion dollars going directly to help people. At 452 billion dollars in welfare funds, with 70 percent overhead, we are currently getting about 136 billion dollars into the hands of the needy. It seems to me that simply requiring some percentage be given to U.S. charities would be significantly more efficient and result in better outcomes than the government's current methods. At any rate, what percentage would be needed just to match the government?
Well, at 2% from EVERY citizen, including the 30% overhead deduction for private charity, we get about 137 billion dollars. So, all we have to do to eliminate welfare for good is to require all Americans to give no less than 2% of their income to U.S. charities directly devoted to helping the needy? I think I could get behind that kind of program, especially and only if it allowed us to choose our charity. People could still give above and beyond that as they see fit, but that simple 2% number dedicated to charities here at home seems to outstrip the federal government in amount and efficiency. Of course, some of the 3% average NOW is given here at home and I do not know how much that is, so probably an amount closer to 5% would really be needed to achieve the goal of doing away with welfare. At any rate, that is significantly better than the constant banging of our heads against a wall that we are doing with government programs right now.
Both of these actions, my idea and government welfare, being carried out by the federal government are unconstitutional, in my opinion. Therefore, when looking at it, which is more constitutional than the other. Well, my idea requires a certain amount of money be spent on charities in the U.S. but doesn't specify which ones. Therefore, I can give to my local church, my local food bank, my local homeless shelter, etc. Therefore, I have a lot of personal choice in the matter and can use my money in places where I think it'll do the most good. The government simply takes money from people in one part of society and gives it to other people in society. Private charities are more efficient at using the money than government as well. Therefore, I submit that since we are already violating the constitution, we might as well do it in a way that supports the tenets of freedom we were founded on much more than the current welfare state achieves.
