Private charity can't replace government social programs

To suggest that community or faith-based charities can effectively supplant government social programs is a fantasy that serves only as a talking point to cut those programs.

Michael Hiltzik, LA Times
5:00 AM PDT, March 30, 2014

As often happens when the financial demands on government social programs rise, there's been a lot of talk lately about the need to return to the traditional American system of community and faith-based help for the needy: charity, not government handouts.

One hears this most often from fiscal conservatives such as House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who spoke on the radio not long ago about how suburbanites shouldn't drive past blighted neighborhoods and say, "I'm paying my taxes, government's going to fix that." Instead, he advised, "You need to get involved yourself, whether it's through a mentor program or some religious charity … to make a difference."

It's a common theme. Compared with government relief, private charity is supposed to be more responsive to individual need and less bureaucratic; more of a helping hand and less of an initiative-suppressing "hammock," the term Ryan uses to deride the effects of government programs.

It's supposed to be more humane, too. Listen to California's own Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) telling his colleagues on the House Agriculture Committee that it's far better to help poor people "through the church ... because it comes from the heart, not from a badge or a mandate."

(More here.)