This is the time of year we think about how thankful we are for the blessings God has given us, as well as being able to live in a country like the United States. It is very appropriate that following Thanksgiving we become very thoughtful about helping other people, giving to charities, sending packages to service men, volunteering at the Rescue Mission, giving a gift to The United Way or increasing our support of our church.
The fact is that the United States has the most generous citizenry in the world. Some critics will say that we give so much because we have a guilt complex. But in rebuttal I would say that we give so much for a number of other reason, with guilt not even making the list.
The first most obvious reason that we give so much because we have so much. I really believe that Americans feel more responsibility to share than many other cultures. It is part of our training and upbringing to reach out a hand where needed. I know this has changed in some of the larger cities in the country. I believe this comes from the mentality of people who live in large cities. Most of the crime in our country is committed in large cities. As a result, there is often a heightened sense of mistrust and fear. But to spite all of this, even in places like New York City and Washington DC you will find many people performing acts of kindness and generosity.
I believe the second reason Americans are generous is that we believe "What goes around comes around". This is just a clever way of restating the Golden Rule. Given a choice, we will usually treat others as we would want to be treated if we were in similar circumstances. Most of us can think back to some time when someone reached out a hand to us. Those of us who have children would like to think that maybe someone would help one of our loved ones if they were in need.
The third reason as I see it is that we live in a country where the government, our society, our tax laws and our churches all encourage giving to help others. This aspect even goes beyond personal charity and encompasses corporate and business charity. Due to tax deductions we are all encouraged to give away a portion of our income to charity. Although millions of individuals support charities of their choice, businesses are some of our largest givers. Every year many companies give away millions of dollars both in cash and products to a whole spectrum of causes.
There is a tendency as our country becomes more socialized to put more and more of our charitable responsibility in the hands of the government. We expect the government to take care of us in a number of situations where we no longer have personal resources to manage our lives. The government can't do these things without raising money, which it gets through taxation. So as programs and entitlements increase, so do taxes.
But by making some minor changes in the tax laws, much of this responsibility could be placed back into the private sector, where our charitable gifts could cover these expenses. By simply increasing the amount that businesses could deduct for donations, as well as carefully defining certain areas of charitable need and giving which would reward the giver with even higher tax deductions, many of the government entitlement programs could be eliminated.
The biggest benefit of this approach is efficiency. The cost of maintaining government programs is very high. A large portion of the tax dollar has to go to overhead. Private charities have very small overhead costs. And the government could regulate how much a charity could allow for overhead in case there were some organizations that were not really serving the purpose stated in their Articles of Incorporation.
We have many great charities that serve an important roll in our society. Many are willing to step up and assume more responsibility if only their available funds would allow. Lets look for ways to make our generous country even more generous by encouraging charitable giving.
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