Honestly, second hand items are a great way to reduce waste and provide things to people that don’t necessarily need or want them brand new, especially those in a lower income bracket. But I’ll agree that it’s disgusting that people are forced to rely on charity because our government fails so miserably at providing a base level of living for our most desperate citizens.
such that charitable donations for domestic causes are not needed.
Okay, I’ll bite. Under your system, what would your criteria be for the “approved causes”? Who is going to be the ongoing arbitrator of the list of “approved causes”?
I mean that’s kinda the point of taxes. People should have housing, food, water, and healthcare. If we did taxes right, those elements would already be covered and drastically reduce the current lift of charities. Most charities now focus on those elements and if we taxed appropriately and spent with good intentions we could cover the 90th percentile of charity needs without going in depth on edge cases. There will end up being edge cases such that charities probably won’t ever be unnecessary but don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress. Watching go fund me campaigns for healthcare is so goddamn dystopian.
I mean that’s kinda the point of taxes. People should have housing, food, water, and healthcare.
Agreed.
If we did taxes right, those elements would already be covered
Agreed.
and drastically reduce the current lift of charities.
Disagreed. This last statement is incomplete.
You’re using the word “charities” but from the context of your entire post you’re talking about baseline level 1 of Maslow’s hierarchy. I’d hazard to say most charities (as a raw number of organizations, not their size) are outside of level 1 Maslow’s hierarchy. Just some examples:
Free Software Foundation (Advocates of GNU software)
Michael J. Fox Foundation (Research into developing innovative treatments of Parkinson’s disease)
Project Linus (Makes handmade blankets to children 0-18 in the United States who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need)
None of these organizations would fit that Maslow’s level 1, but the proposal in this thread is to hand over funding these organizations via taxes. The list of worthy charities is not only miles long, but also can be very subjective. Are you proposing that ONLY BASIC NEEDS should be considered charities worthy of funding without being taxed?
So I disagree on the medical research example as that should be included in public research funding. Your example of the FSF is spot on as an area of expansion. For the examples like Project Linus, I assume smaller charities like that make up less than 10% of charity totals combined which would fall into the example of “lets focus on the main 90%”. If the share of charities that are not covered by Maslows L1 is smaller than like 80ish percent then the approach would need to be changed. I have no idea how to search for that data. I would think that the items listed would cover 90ish percent of I could be way off though and am curious is there is a way to find that out.
OR…we build a system that provides the necessary foundation for citizens such that charitable donations for domestic causes are not needed.
Honestly, second hand items are a great way to reduce waste and provide things to people that don’t necessarily need or want them brand new, especially those in a lower income bracket. But I’ll agree that it’s disgusting that people are forced to rely on charity because our government fails so miserably at providing a base level of living for our most desperate citizens.
Okay, I’ll bite. Under your system, what would your criteria be for the “approved causes”? Who is going to be the ongoing arbitrator of the list of “approved causes”?
I mean that’s kinda the point of taxes. People should have housing, food, water, and healthcare. If we did taxes right, those elements would already be covered and drastically reduce the current lift of charities. Most charities now focus on those elements and if we taxed appropriately and spent with good intentions we could cover the 90th percentile of charity needs without going in depth on edge cases. There will end up being edge cases such that charities probably won’t ever be unnecessary but don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress. Watching go fund me campaigns for healthcare is so goddamn dystopian.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Disagreed. This last statement is incomplete.
You’re using the word “charities” but from the context of your entire post you’re talking about baseline level 1 of Maslow’s hierarchy. I’d hazard to say most charities (as a raw number of organizations, not their size) are outside of level 1 Maslow’s hierarchy. Just some examples:
None of these organizations would fit that Maslow’s level 1, but the proposal in this thread is to hand over funding these organizations via taxes. The list of worthy charities is not only miles long, but also can be very subjective. Are you proposing that ONLY BASIC NEEDS should be considered charities worthy of funding without being taxed?
So I disagree on the medical research example as that should be included in public research funding. Your example of the FSF is spot on as an area of expansion. For the examples like Project Linus, I assume smaller charities like that make up less than 10% of charity totals combined which would fall into the example of “lets focus on the main 90%”. If the share of charities that are not covered by Maslows L1 is smaller than like 80ish percent then the approach would need to be changed. I have no idea how to search for that data. I would think that the items listed would cover 90ish percent of I could be way off though and am curious is there is a way to find that out.
Thank you for this. With this post you answered one of the two of my very first questions to you. My question to you was:
Who is going to be the ongoing arbitrator of the list of “approved causes”?
Your answer: “Me”
Do you think that is a realistic approach for determining which charitable contributions should not be taxed?