One of today's Op/Eds in the Toronto Star discusses the differences between US and Canadian charitable practices and raises a good point.
The author starts off by talking about Oprah's Big Give (warning: annoying sound and video, not work friendly), in which two teams worked to improve conditions in a rundown US public school. She points out that neither team stops to ponder why the school ever got to such a sorry state. From there she discusses Canada's (possibly eroding) tradition of progressive social policies (taxes paying for public services) as opposed to the US tradition of smaller government.
First, I think she is a little tough on Oprah. I haven't seen the show, but my guess is that the people working to improve those schools all do think that the general condition of many US public schools is shameful. But that wasn't the task at hand for them. It isn't a social policy programming, it's a charity-based game show. Lighten up.
But I guess we have to accept that newspaper writers have to glob on to whatever hook they can, and the content of the article is actually pretty interesting. It isn'tthe first time anybody has made this argument, but basically she is saying that in the US we give money privately to the causes we support and the services we like, when everyone may be better off if we used the government for those services. Whether or not you agree with that argument says a lot about your personal politics. But I wonder how many US philanthropists believe that their donations are going to replace the taxes they don't pay. I bet not very many.
