Egypt and gun control

[fightingquaker13]

Charity begins at home.

Honestly sledge, that sems like a solid argument to make. Generally I'm as anti tax as anyone, but when there is a manifest need such as y'all have, I'll suck it up (assuming there is a plan to spend it effeciently and an expiration date on the tax). Still, it seems that Austrlia could and should take the simple step of just suspending all foriegn aid until your current crisis is dealt with. I know the dogooders would scream, but why is it so radical simply to say "Sorry, but we've pressing needs at home and until we'e fixed our own mess we can't afford to gve"? Its no different than cutting back on charitable contributions during a period of unemployment.  You just can't give this year, sorry. It seems like any politician who advocated that would get a huge following.
Q13

[Solus]

I just can't see raising money for any cause by holding a gun to  your citizen's heads and forcing them to contribute, and that is exactly how I view taxation, as being Right in any manner, no matter how "good" the cause is.

If folks think it is a worthy cause, they will contribute, if not, that is their business also.  Do we need to post the Davey Crockett piece again?

Not only is it morally wrong, it is a waste of the money contributed.  I don't think I would have many arguments with my saying that the folks who need it would be lucky to get 50 cents of every dollar contributed after all the bean counting all the way to the capitol and then back out to the needy.

Again, let the local/national charities handle this.  That is what they do and if they do a lousy job of it, folks will give their contributions to a group that will do a good job.

And, yes, the government should get out of foreign aid.  There are international charities to handle that also.  Maybe military aid for strategic allies but I'll let someone else discuss that.

BTW, I just read that we send economic aid to China.  Not a lot, $65 million a year, but why do we send any to a country that charges us interest to loan us back the money we gave them gratis?

 

[tombogan03884]

Administering charities is why Churches don't pay taxes.
If the Govt. has to do it for them then they should be taxed just like any other business.

[TAB]

There is a reason why I only donate time/money to groups that I personally know.

there are 4 in town that I will donate too. 2 sports related, 1 teen homeless shelter, the 4th makes prosthsis for children and vets.

All of them local all of them have no employees and 100% of the funds goes to those they are trying to help.

None of the "beg" either, they have fund raisers.  I ran a tourny for one 2 weeks back, we ended up making about 12k off it.