I am very conservative so I basically think there should be no social programs at all (everything should be privatized) so I would definitely support this idea. Why should my tax money go towards health care for some fucked up addict? Its supposed to go to honest hardworking people as well as infrastructure and other programs.

The below is not referring to drug users or those able to work and choose not to.

Taking care of the lower-earning or unable-to-work sections of the population directly benefits you. Not paying for them to have a house, food and utilities out of tax means a greater cost when they recieve emergency medical care, or commit crime and take police/justice time and are kept in prison, or because they aren't educated enough to contribute to the economy, or because their children don't have the opportunity to rise out of their parents' social situation.

Private charity is erratic: it can be removed at any moment with no commitment to people or guaranteeing that a particular service will continue long enough to matter. The money given to charity can rise and fall: charities earn the least money during recessions, but that is when the necessary volume of provision should rise! Charity is also free to discriminate between the ethnicites, geographic areas and kinds of need they provide for. People who work for charities have little incentive to get people back to work because their existence depends on poor people needing help - but if the government provides then they have huge incentive to get people into work as it gets tax dollars and reduces expenditure.

Ending government social programs is a short-sighted view, as next tax year you would be a few thousand dollars better off, and then in all subsequent years the costs I mentioned would eliminate almost all of that gain and yet the average level of provision would decrease as giving to charity would be a choice a minority would make (instead of everyone paying) and they wouldn't exactly give more than they would have in tax.

Sorry, but that's just wrong.

Also, it's about what's right, not what's easy. Just because the government thinks taking my effort in the form on money and giving it to someone else makes my life better, it does not make it the right thing to do.

Also, what you stated would happen has proven over time to be wrong. In areas very high welfare vs areas of very low welfare, the areas with high welfare have far more crime.

I have been reading a little on the history of the native New Zealand people. It seems when Europeans came to the south island, they took the land from the people (well, they bought it for a very low sum). This means that as the economy grew in NZ, the native people could not grow with it. It did not turn them into a bunch of thieves and murders.

The US did the same thing with the native indians. It did not make them criminals. This "theory" about why I have to work for someone else is just wrong.

And let me ask you this: Why is it that since we started the war on poverty, the unemployment and rates of poverty are exactly the same, despite the trillions poured into social programs? You say charities have no incentive to rehabilitate the people, but the absolute fact is that the government has done no better, and I'd love to see you provide a reference that can prove otherwise.

And here are some examples of charities which are helping people, and having great success rates on rehabilitation - to the likes of which the government has never seen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Challenge#Studies_of_Teen_Challenge_Effectiveness (higher than average success rates for getting youth off of drugs, and into employment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvation_army#Disaster_relief - Salvation Army usually arrives FIRST, BEFORE GOVERNMENT AID to disaster sites.

And so on. I wonder, Soleron, have you ever worked for a charity before? I would think that if you worked with one, you'd probably change your tune. If you haven't worked for a charity, then I don't know how you can really comment about the need of government welfare programs, when you haven't seen people band together, and help out eachother.

I've worked with charities for almost a decade now. I can honestly tell you, and every other VGC-er that your view on charity is BS. I haven't met a director that hasn't wanted to help rehab people, get them to work, deliver aid to them unbiased, and use every resource they have for the less fortunate.

As I've done before, I'll give my personal example:

I live in a town of ~13,000 people. My church started a local food pantry. They started it to help those below the poverty line to have food assistance (among the other soup kitchens out there).
The program was run by a woman that lived below the poverty line her entire life, and was retired - she wanted to give back for all the assistence she had recieved in her life.

The program's budget was under $500 a month. The money was provided by the members of the church, and any external donations. Overhead was covered by the church, as it used a converted basement-turned-pantry during the week. Church members, and whomever was willing (about 50% of staff was external) staffed the project. Food was obtained via the Mid-Ohio food bank.

For that $500, the food pantry could feed an estimated 1,000 families a month which is approximately 4,000 people. Comparatively, the government agency was feeding far less people for far more money...From my understanding, they were spending about 20 times more money to feed less people. Of course, the reason for this is that the government agency needed to pay staff, pay overhead, and pay market prices for the foodstuffs. A charity didn't have those disadvantages. And its for those reasons that I believe private charity will always trump the government.

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.

I agree with what Mr Stickball said above. Good post.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1240988/France-tops-list-best-places-live-world-fifth-year-row--Britain-languishes-25th.html

The UK is #25 on this list, the US is #7. Most of these kinds of lists really are talking about the poor, or lower middle class, as if you have money just about anywhere is a great place to live.

So, I am not sure I would agree with the quoted statement.

Plus, who cares about the "inequality", if the lowest class lives much better then equal lifestyles in other countries?

Ah the Daily Mail, the paper that forces pessimism down the throats of British people lol.

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The source they used for that was the quality of life index 2010.

The methodology this year (source) looked at 9 fields, Cost of Living, Leisure & Culture, Economy, Environment, Freedom, Health, Infrastructure, Risk & Safety and Climate. The UK came 5 points behind the USA in overall tally, which is fair, the USA is a far far nicer place to live than this crap hole.

However, the UK did beat the USA in several fields which seem to suggest that poor are better off in the UK, such as healthcare. Healthcare is a universal factor, the quality affects everyone; but it especially affects the poor who have trouble accessing good healthcare, so if good healthcare is provided for them their quality of living is better. The UK beat the USA's healthcare system by 6 points, indicating that our more socialised (yet hybrid) system is much more effective in supplying healthcare to the poor than the USA's hybrid system. (I know I'm barking up the wrong tree with argument)

The UK tended to beat the USA in fields which directly influence poor peoples quality of life such as the the environment (10 points higher), health (6 points higher) and personal freedom (8 points higher). The fields the UK failed compared to the USA weren't particularly as important to the quality of life for the poor, such as climate (USA trounced the UK by a whopping 18 points here).

To be honest, I think it's probably better being poor in Britain than it is in the USA.

(On a side note: It certainly looks like it is worse to be rich in the UK than the USA)

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Anyway, it's probably not a good idea to listen to what I have to say today as I'm feeling like shit and I've just spent 8 hours writing up a report, not a good mix. I think I need an aspirin and a nap.

I'm quite happy that this has turned into a good debate, I've enjoyed reading many of your points.

Whilst I agree that the majority of the economy should be privatised where effective, I want to take you up on the point of total privatisation. I don't see how that would work I'm afraid. If you have private police who would they work for? The people who pay them the most? People need guaranteed protection from crime, Who would protect those who can't afford suffice protection? Crime is prevalent in poor areas and yet these are the ones who may not be able to afford police. And so on.

Whilst I agree most things work well in a privatised way, some things would not work well in total privatisation such the police, fire services, the military, roads, etc...