Is compassion a zero sum commodity? If I am compassionate, does that naturally limit your capacity for compassion? We’ve been told time after time that the American people are the most giving, most compassionate people on earth. People who love liberty believe that this compassion springs from two sources. U.S. citizens have historically attended churches or synagogues more frequently than their European brethren, and free market capitalism has endowed Americans with large amounts of disposable income. If it’s true that Americans are more compassionate than other people of the world (there are data that support this), then why does our government insist on taking over that function from us? The mindless, heartless entity that we call the federal government believes that it should tax us more and borrow more money to engage in compassion.
This past week I heard a startling fact that there are eighty-two (82) federal programs for the homeless. Huh? If my memory serves me right, the government has spent much more than $5 trillion on the War on Poverty in the past 50 years. A cursory examination of the data would reveal that the percentage of those living in poverty is roughly the same today as it was when LBJ’s grand initiative was spawned. It would appear that the only true net benefit of the anti-poverty effort has been to increase the membership for public employee unions….and union contributions to the Democrats. The party of wanton spending receives massive sums from the public unions and holds on to power to create more government programs…and hire more government employees…who join the union. OK, you get the idea. Let’s call it “Compassiongate.” Nothing really changes when government attempts to display compassion except that Democrats and union bosses get wealthier.
In this time of huge debt and massive deficits, for government to be a player in the compassion business when the most generous population on earth is ready, willing and able to fill the role is silly. We know from experience that whenever government intrudes into an arena, it tends to drive out the private sector and ends with a virtual monopoly. In some respects government compassion has minimized private sector involvement, but those stubborn big-hearted citizens and churches will not give up. My personal belief is that many progressives encourage government participation in the world of compassion because they want to protect the poor from those “demeaning Gospel messages” that are part and parcel of poverty ministries. In addition there is the assumption by promoters of big government that government is the only entity that can handle the scale of the poverty problem…and is the only actor who can do it fairly.
As anyone with a scintilla of mental capacity can attest, government monopoly does not enhance efficiency or effectiveness. Government is the one element of the economic universe where there is no advantage to the economy of scale. In fact, most of us can observe that the larger the government operation becomes, the more inefficient that it is. Many times I have written in these columns that government has no mind, no heart and no soul. To expect government to dole out measures of compassion in a way that solves problems for individuals is folly. It cannot. Compassion is not its role. Compassion is not the nature of government, and helping people who are down and out is beyond the capacity of government and its lethargic bureaucracy.
If we as a people truly wish to help those who are in need, then we will do it ourselves by pulling the plug on irresponsible and misguided public programs. The funds could be used for debt retirement (if we can trust our venal political operatives to do what’s right), or returned to the taxpayers and would result in more disposable income for Americans to give…or not. They will help when the need is real. If we continue to allow government to monopolize and define compassion, those who need help will continue to suffer, and we will have forfeited another piece of our individual humanity.
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