Ah. I am referring solely to the UK. All of you are solely referring to the US.
Government welfare is structured completely differently between our two countries, and I'm saying that a switch to private charity here would not improve the situation or cost less. A major difference, for example, is that we have fully socialised medicine for the vast majority of the population, the NHS.
In the UK, the government is quite efficient at distributing the tax revenue it gets to those who are on benefits (though I think it still gives out more benefits than are necessary). Hence private charity couldn't do much better but would recieve a lot less money to do so. In the US the government is extremely inefficient, money paid into social welfare per head is lower, and so charity may be able to do a much better job.
In addition, the situation and numbers of the poorest people in the UK is much better than the US. Your government still has millions dependent on food pantries as you say. We don't, except for small numbers of homeless. Since we have council houses and high, indefinite-duration benefits for the poor/have children/elderly, our social welfare is less about food-and-a-place-to-sleep (which charities are good at) and more about boosting standard of living by a few thousand per head. When I lived in your country for 3 years, the level of inequality was MUCH higher than I was used to.
In short, unless I studied your country in much greater depth, or you mine, we can't really have that discussion. One thing though: your country's welfare is much more broken that mine, and will require a more radical solution to fix. That could be charity.
@mrstickball
With charities protecting minorities, I was arguing the opposite. Charities would focus TOO MUCH on minorities, and groups/needs that would get them on the news. They wouldn't really help those that are (to give an example) just on the poverty line, maybe have a low-paying job, no children and no aspirations, but has a house and are able to eat. Government provision would be more even almost by definition.
