Ricky: Still not helping

I wrote earlier about the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Scaife-funded jobs-program and respite-care facility for out-of-work and out-of-favor Republican officials.

That's where former Most Embarrassing Man in the Senate Rick Santorum landed for a career-rehab stint. The idea here is like when a down-on-his-luck former leading man takes a stunt-casting role in a regional Shakespeare festival. The festival gets a bit of free publicity and the aging ham hopes, by osmosis, to regain a reputation as a credible actor. EPPC provides Santorum with a shiny new title -- "senior fellow and head of the Program to Protect America's Freedom" -- as well as with institutional support and the assistance of ghost-thinkers (including an old friend of mine who seems to have landed the thankless gig of playing Jeeves to Santorum's Wooster -- good luck with that).

The founding president of the EPPC, Ernest W. Lefever, recently tested the lower threshhold of the "publish or perish" dictum by compiling a collection of limericks, that "reflect facets of truth and virtue wrapped in the garments of irony and caricature." In honor of this achievement, I'm tempted to dismiss Rick Santorum, the Man Who Wouldn't Go Away, thusly:

The EPPC gave a forum
To an idiot named Rick Santorum
But try as they might
To make him seem bright
It's best if we all just ignore 'im.

Yet unfortunately we can't just ignore him because, inexplicably, he's still around. The Philadelphia Inquirer has strangely decided to interpret Santorum's carrying 16 percent of the vote in the city as evidence that Philadelphians are clamoring for regular, ongoing insights from Sen. Man-on-Dog, so they've provided him a platform on their op-ed page.

(Note to the Inky: If you must give an op-ed column to a former Republican senator, why not Alan Simpson? He is A) usually interesting, and B) not an embarrassment overwhelmingly rejected by your readers.)

Happily, at Philly's other daily paper, Will Bunch has accepted the role of Janitorum -- cleaning up after the former senator by pointing out the factual holes in Santorum's otherwise "inscrutable" first column. Bunch neatly highlights much of the hypocrisy of the "common-good conservatism" Santorum claims to advocate. But since Santorum is now posing as an adherent of Catholic social teaching, a bit more needs to be said.

Citing the principle of subsidiarity, Santorum writes:

What I call "common-good" conservatism not only relies as much as possible on private charities and faith organizations, market forces, individual choice and decentralized decision-making, but also sees a role for government in empowering the nongovernmental institutions of civil society that serve the common good.

For example ... taxpayers are at least as capable as Washington bureaucrats of choosing an effective charity that aids the poor in their communities. So why not eliminate most government grants and give a tax credit to individuals who give to poverty-fighting nonprofits?

Hmm, a tax write-off for charitable giving, why that does seem like a good idea! Maybe that's why charitable donations are already tax deductible?

What Santorum is advocating here, though, goes beyond the current tax-deduction system to an old proposal of President Bush's to replace programs aiding low-income children and families with private charitable efforts. Santorum's belief in "decentralized decision-making" does not extend to his actually bothering to ask what the private charities in question think of this idea. They're against it, in apocalyptic terms. In exchange for a possible, but unlikely, slight increase in donor funding, Santorum would eliminate the taxpayer-funded programs that these charities support. That step, they say, would bury them -- they would be swept away by a flood of need they don't have the capacity to absorb.

Here's Margy Waller (.pdf) six years ago, discussing why Santorum's proposal is a Very Bad Idea:

President Bush’s proposal to increase charitable giving by promoting state charity tax credits is not in the best interest of low-income children and families. The credits are purportedly expected to increase charitable giving to “charities addressing poverty and its impact.” Yet, there is no evidence that tax credits would increase giving, and every reason to expect that the particular design of the credit program would significantly impact the chances of achieving that outcome. Charitable giving experience indicates that programs in communities with the greatest need would receive the least in contributions. People give where they live, and poor communities would be losers in a system that depends on charitable giving to support community needs. Finally, because the federal incentive for the credit is to allow states the use of an existing anti-poverty funding stream to offset the cost of the credit to the state treasuries, charities, poor communities, and families should be wary. Block grant funds that are sent to the poorest communities today could be reallocated to communities with the greatest capacity for charitable giving, if not the greatest need for services.

Further, President Bush’s own budget numbers acknowledge that states would have to reduce funding for services like child care and transportation assistance to pay for the credits.

This is why everybody from Independent Sector to the United Way opposed the idea.

Say you're running a shoe-string, faith-based job training program in the basement of your local Baptist church. You've got little overhead and a lot of committed volunteers working as mentors in concert with the support structure the entire congregation is able to provide, so you've got an impressive success rate -- securing stable employment for 10 participants every month. Now you'd be dealing with 50, or 100 participants a month. Oh, and they no longer have access to assistance with child care or transportation, so now you're going to have to provide that too. But don't worry, come December, if you survive until then, you might see a slight increase in year-end donations, although securing such an increase will involve the new overhead expense of a marketing team working on the other side of the tracks.

No, thank you.

Santorum offers a blueprint for the destruction of the nonprofit sector. In 2005, total charitable giving* in the United States was $260 billion. About 10 percent of that giving was directly due to the estate tax. Santorum wants to repeal the estate tax. So there goes 10 percent of the operating budgets of America's nonprofits. He also wants to get rid of government grants. Those grants provide about 38 percent of the operating budgets of American nonprofits.

So wham, bam, thank you ma'am, Santorum's agenda would almost overnight halve the operating budget of the nonprofit sector, while simultaneously eliminating the social safety net and thus overwhelming the nonprofit sector's capacity even if were able to respond at full strength. He wants to do all of this, he says, "for the common good."

Nonprofits don't want the kind of "help" Santorum is offering them. He'd already know that if his commitment to "decentralized decision-making" were more than lip service.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

* That's all charitable giving, to local religious congregations, art museums, symphonies, hospitals, universities and soup kitchens alike. For a smarter and more effective approach to bolstering poverty-fighting nonprofits, see Robert Reich's "Why Charity Doesn't Begin at Home:

It turns out that only an estimated 10 percent of all charitable deductions are directed at the poor. So here's a modest proposal. At a time when the number of needy continues to rise, when government doesn't have the money to do what's necessary for them and when America's very rich are richer than ever, we should revise the tax code: Focus the charitable deduction on real charities. If the donation goes to an institution or agency set up to help the poor, the donor gets a full deduction. If the donation goes somewhere else -- to an art palace, a university, a symphony or any other nonprofit -- the donor gets to deduct only half of the contribution.

Comments

[Ecks]

Scottbot is outraged to hear that LIBERALS are forcing toys on sick children in hospitals, in the name of compassion.

best. Scottbot. ever.

hapax: Who mourns for a Dennis?
*sputter* LOL!!!!

Errr... don't get it. <hangs head in shame>

Cheap trick to recover self-esteem in a trice: Blow one of scott's arguments to little tiny splinters*.
Scott: If a charity says "people getting to choose to give hurts us", that doesn't speak well of that charity.

Funny isn't it how "people would not choose to give X money," translates directly 1 to 1 in Scott's mind as "X must be worthless." So if I am, say, a poor person dying in the streets, and nobody chooses to give me money, then I am de facto worthless, and it is probably quite a good thing if I get on with dying and stop bothering everyone by being an unsightly near-corpse.

But Scott, if this is how it works in your little tiny world, then morally repugnant, selfish, self absorbed and assholish as that is, I shall accept it, just for you. Now quick show of hands: Who is willing to give give Scott money (better hope for some takers quick here Scott, or you know that that means!)

BTW, this does mean you're going to have to stop bashing on bush and cheney and the mega-churches scott. Plenty of people give them money... way more than anyone has ever given you... Wait, is that why you keep bashing on them, because you have such an intensely developed inferiority complex. Poor thing. But you're still not getting a dime from this donor.

* Okay, I realize lobotomized macaques could trash most of Scott's arguments too, but... Well, I'm easy to please. It's one of my few virtues.

[burgundy]

Ecks: "Who Mourns for Adonais" was the title of a Star Trek (original series) episode.

[Bugmaster]

So if I am, say, a poor person dying in the streets, and nobody chooses to give me money, then I am de facto worthless, and it is probably quite a good thing if I get on with dying and stop bothering everyone by being an unsightly near-corpse.

As far as I understand, this is actually the key premise of libertarianism (of the Scott kind, though he is not alone in this). Your life is not some metaphysical/spiritual inaliable right, it's your property. As such, it is worth money, thus killing you is wrong, because it's theft (of your life, and thus your money).

Some lives are worth more than others, because their owners have invested more work into them, or, in rare cases, because they have more untapped potential (similar to a yet undeveloped gold mine). The poor person's life is worth very little, because he has chosen not to invest any value into it -- sort of like a broken-down, rusted-out car that is falling apart due to neglect -- and because he very likely has little potential, if any. After all, every human being is able to perform at least some sort of work, no matter how mundane it is.

Of course, the above holds true only under Libertopian conditions. In our world, the Government (tm) is, basically, a massively organized criminal organization that delights in taking your money for no good reason (other than to make itself rich). Thus, most poor people in our world are poor not because of their own failures, but because the government took all their money (or set up conditions that makes it impossible to earn money without losing it all to the government, which is pretty much the same thing).

Now quick show of hands: Who is willing to give give Scott money...

Note that, in Libertopia, charity is foolish at best, and immoral at worst -- because, instead of encouraging others to create value (and, thus, make money), you are destroying value by throwing your own wealth away. Payment for goods and services rendered is perfectly acceptable, of course. Thus, if Scott is a real libertarian, he would no doubt be offended at your offer of charity (and he definitely won't take any). By offering him money for free, you are implicitly claiming that he is incapable of producing anything valuable -- i.e. that he is, literally, worthless.

Anyway, the above is just my own interpretation of libertopian thought. I personally disagree with some of its finer points, but I have to admit that it is internally consistent.

[Tehanu]

It seems that whenever the Republicans want to cut charities and arts and other social funding, they will defend the cuts by saying that the public will rise to the occasion and choose to step in and help out. And yet, at pretty much all other times, in all other circumstances, we are reminded by the Republicans about how our lefty "feel-good" policies will never work because people are inherently selfish jerks.

Interesting, that.

Posted by: Dave Lartigue | Nov 26, 2007 at 08:20 PM

Good comment, but your emphasis is slightly off, Dave. They DO say -- and some even really believe -- that the "public" will rise to the occasion. The only thing is ... none of them will be in that public, because they're all cheap greedheads.

[Ecks]

Thanks Burgundy!
This reveals my credentials for what they are: Geek lite. I grew up playing D&D (then AD&D, yes, I'm just old enough), and at one time had a fairly encyclopedic knowledge of a handful of rulebooks in a smaller handful of systems... but I can't quote star trek titles, and I never quite liked the original series (though tribbles ARE adorable).
In the last 3 years at least I added the basic credential 101 of programming, even if just in one language, and not at *exactly* 1337 levels.

@Bugs,
hm. But what does it say about your liberworth if someone is willing to pay money to have you killed? I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

BTW, after Scott's rants on the previous thread I don't know how much ideologue he is, and how much just flat out whinner. "Waaa, we used to meet at the pub, and some new guy came in and switched the meetings to dinner instead, and I don't like it, and the uber boss wouldn't admit that this was EVIL of him, so they're all eeeevol, waaaa!". I'm sure he had some good points in some of his stories, but he's reminding me of the people I ran into during my brief brushes with admin politics... It's there I learned that while it's everyone's god given right to kvetch (myself included), there's a special breed who will scream every time things don't go quite the way they think it should, as if their mothers were being personally assaulted. I add here that I wasn't even the one making the decisions, I was just stuck in the middle watching it all unfold, having to explain bits of it to different people. Yargle.

[Michele]

Tribbles WERE adorable, you mean. Need I remind everyone of this??

[quote from Wikipedia]
the tribbles were hunted down and exterminated by the Klingon Empire; specially-trained warriors were sent to kill every tribble in existence, and an armada of Klingon vessels obliterated the tribble homeworld. Klingons are unique among Star Trek's races in their extreme hatred of these cute little creatures (the feeling was apparently mutual). This is because they were "an ecological menace", and emitted a loud shrieking noise instead of their normal soothing purr in the presence of Klingons. Deep Space Nine Security Officer Odo dryly remarks, "Another glorious chapter in Klingon history. Tell me, do they still sing songs of the Great Tribble Hunt?"
[/quote]

[Bugmaster]

But what does it say about your liberworth if someone is willing to pay money to have you killed? I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Er... you are worth a negative amount ? But then, the assassin is getting paid positive moneys... But but... #$&*(^

Exception in org.scottbot.emulation.logic.ScottBot.FSMStep(): Stack overflow

[Ryan Ferneau]

Can you work in one of Roddenberry's typical Deity-as-Demento characters, to borrow Harlan Ellison's term? To provoke Scottbot, perhaps Hillary could show up in the guise of Q or Charlie X or the Squire of Gothos or NOMAD.

Hey Tonio, I caught you writing a similar post a year ago! http://www.radiogodsforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11408

[Nenya]

Ah, but, Michele, but--in the time-travel episode, the DS9-ers managed to bring at least one Tribble back to the future, thus flooding Quark's bar with the things. It is not revealed what happened to said Tribbles afterwards, but it is possible that they have now been successfully reintroduced to the 24th century. Hopefully Dr. Bashir figured out real quick how to spay them....

[J]

President Bush’s proposal to increase charitable giving by promoting state charity tax credits is not in the best interest of low-income children and families. The credits are purportedly expected to increase charitable giving to “charities addressing poverty and its impact.” Yet, there is no evidence that tax credits would increase giving

Does anyone else have the impression that conserva-folk and Scottkin see human beings as little mechanical wind-up toys, with giant keys stuck in our backs that can only be wound by changing the rates of taxation?

Now I don't dispute that tax rates do affect behavior, but I do think it always affects it way, way less than is posited. Like, I have to say that tax rates for married couples played no role whatsoever in my decision to get married. And I doubt they even did for the Scaife foundation people who claim they do.

[cjmr]

"Who Mourns for Adonais" was the title of a Star Trek (original series) episode.

The title for which was taken from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, so it's actually a double cultural reference.

Well played, hapax.

[Cyllan]

tax rates for married couples played no role whatsoever in my decision to get married

We considered not getting legally married because our taxes went up slightly. But yes. My general decisions are not governed by the tax code. I think one only starts to really make those kinds of decisions about money and taxes when one has enough money that it becomes a game and not a means to pay the mortgage/rent.

[Sean K]

As someone who works in theater, I cannot endorse any kind of weighting of charitable donations, as much as it might sound like a good idea on first glance. Making all non-poor-feeding-and-housing donations worth fifty cents on the dollar would almost certainly drop all charitable giving to museums, universities, and (most directly important to me) theaters to zero.

Pretty much every non-major house in the country would go under in pretty short order. They all depend on the charitable donations of their patrons, and can only cover about 60% of their operating budget from box office receipts.

[Michele]

Sean - as a classical musician, I agree.

Nenya - tribbles on DS9, right you are. :-)

[zmayhem]

Coming in very, very late to say that this entire thread is a thing of great and shimmering beauty, from Fred's entire original post (especially the assistance of ghost-thinkers (including an old friend of mine who seems to have landed the thankless gig of playing Jeeves to Santorum's Wooster -- good luck with that) and the accompanying picture of a diligent dung beetle, through the demolishing of Christine, scottbot's outrage at the foul liberal malice of giving toys to sick children, and the entire Star Trek riff (hapax wins ninety internets, but surely damnedyankee deserves a tube or two for Time and space unfolds, revealing a shining Dennis Kucinich treading mightily among the stars) and the vision of Martin Luther caught in a space-time anomaly on a starship bridge.

I don't even have anything to say. I'm just all awash in love and admiration.

[Ryan Ferneau]

I take it Sean doesn't mean movie theaters, which depend on severely overcharging their patrons for food to stay in business.

[Sean K]

Indeed, Ryan. I wish we could all make movie-theater-concessions money.

Also, I have to wave "hi" to zmayhem, and boggle at the synchronicity of both of us posting here on the same day.

[Spherical Time]

I have to disagree with you, Sean. I don't think that cutting the tax deduction of charitable giving to the arts to 25% would reduce it to zero.

It would probably redirect some of it, and some community projects such as yours could feel the pinch, but I very much doubt it would cease entirely.

Donating to the arts, especially the arts that you enjoy the most, makes people feel good. There will always be people that donate to the theater/theatre, even if there was no deduction at all, for the pleasure they get from the consumption of said art. This was the case in Shakespeare's England, you'll recall.

This isn't to say that this still might be a bad thing, but it's not nearly so dire as you imply.

[Les]

Hey Fred,

I love your posts, but I have to disagree with your suggestions to only give half tax credit to supporting the arts. Arts are vitally important to culture and, alas, one of the first things to get hit when politicians are talking tax cuts. I'm on the board of an arts non-profit. We provide a vital service to our community and we need the donations that folks give us.

I totally understand why you'd like to funnel more money to the poor and I don't disagree with your motives. The social safety net and support for the arts are traditionally the job of the government and should remain so. It's a terrible shame when the government lets down the arts and a crime when they let down the poor. If they are so allergic to having a reasonable tax burden that they have to cut one, alas, the should not hang the poor out to dry.

But the arts need funding too and I think that reducing the tax deduction for arts giving won't increase the amount of giving to anti-poverty NGOs, but rather just lead to less giving overall. We'll have the same problem with poverty, augmented by suddenly unemployed symphony musicians.

And seriously, I hate the idea of the arts being in some sort of conflict with reducing poverty. A functional society does both things. We shouldn't have to pick. Arts-and-poor-hating misanthropists are laughing all the way to the bank when NGOs have to fight each other for scraps.

[damnedyankee]

Donating to the arts, especially the arts that you enjoy the most, makes people feel good. There will always be people that donate to the theater/theatre, even if there was no deduction at all, for the pleasure they get from the consumption of said art. This was the case in Shakespeare's England, you'll recall.

But converting the system to something akin to hoping and praying that someone with a check will eventually show up to pay the theater's heating bill isn't a solution.