John Stossel: Giving to Charity Beats Giving to Uncle Sam — Every Time
It’s the season for giving.
I’ll give!
I’ll donate to the Doe Fund, a charity that helps ex-cons find purpose in life through Work. “Work works!” They say. It is. Doe Fund graduates are less likely than others to return to jail.
I’ll donate to Student Sponsor Partners, which helps at-risk kids escape bad “public (government-run)” schools.
SSP sends children to Catholic schools. I’m not Catholic, but I donate because the Catholic schools do better at half the cost. SSP helped thousands of families end the cycle of poverty.
When I was young, my assumption was that government would help people get out of poverty. “Government programs, a ‘war on poverty’ will give a leg up to the poor,” said my Princeton professors. I believed. But then, I witnessed the programs fail.
Now, I realize that government actions can do as much damage as good. Sometimes, it does more harm than good.
That’s it! “war on poverty.” Americans were able to get out of poverty when it started. Every year, the number below the poverty level has decreased.
Next came the government bureaucrats and their programs. So far, they’ve spent $25 Trillion Programmes for the Poor
Some people were helped by the money. For the first seven years, the poverty rate fell. “war.”
However, then the progress stopped. Government’s handouts encouraged people to become dependent Handouts
Learned helplessness, it’s called.
Welfare Created An “underclass,” generations of people who don’t work. They’d lose benefits if they do.
Generations of people bear children but don’t marry. They’d lose benefits if they do.
The government taught people to be passive. This was a bad and new concept.
That’s why charity is better. Charity workers can help you decide who needs your support and who just needs to be pushed.
Not all charities do good. Some charities are just as bad as the government. Charity can encourage people to give back if they’re well-run. independence.
They also don’t Forcing We will give them money.
There’s an even better way to help people: capitalism. Not that I’ll convince most people.
Senator Elizabeth Warren complained about Elon Musk’s conduct. “pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else.”
Freeloading? I like Musk’s answer.
“I will pay more taxes than any American in history ($11 billion that year) . . . Don’t spend it all at once . . . oh, wait, you did already.”
They did. Every 15 hours, the feds consume $11 billion. Republicans and Democrats are now spending even more More.
Musk, for his part, is working to make Twitter profitable. Some of his ideas may not work. Some will fail. Musk will fail.
Warren and her colleagues in politics take our money by force.
I prefer Musk’s way.
Sometimes billionaires can do horrible things. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg censors truthful reporting. Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos sneakily lobby for regulations They have advantages over their competition (such as a higher minimum salary). Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, and Oprah Winfrey purchased gross polluting yachts.
But it’s their own money. They can spend it however they like. They do better with it than the government.
Zuckerberg created better ways for people to connect. Bezos makes shopping simpler and more affordable. Musk made it easier to shop online and cheaper for socialists by censoring my Twitter account. He also created better electric cars, and provided satellite internet access to the poor.
Competition forces businesses to spend more money. This makes them do better. If they don’t spend well, they disappear.
Government never disappears. Politicians who fail to perform well are forced to receive more of our money in order to do so again.
People hate capitalists, but it’s the capitalists who create the jobs, lift people out of poverty and feed the world.
I’m a reporter, not an entrepreneur. I’m not likely to invent something new and useful. So today, I’ll give money to charity.
It makes you feel good.
But the world benefits more from people like Musk — and the millions of entrepreneurs who try new things.
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