Category: Charity

Dueling Dancers

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December 13, 2020

by Steve Stofka

As I read and listen to arguments on both sides of an issue, they fall into two categories: the ontological and the utilitarian. Those terms make our arguments sound erudite and rational. In the wrestling match of ideas and opinions, we need shorter names that will fit on a wrestler’s robe: the Onts and the Utis. This fight has been going on a long time.

If you are an Ont, you argue about the nature of things. Most of the time, you try to gain the upper hand in defining an issue. If someone is new to this country and is hungry or homeless, you might argue that people who have just arrived here are not entitled to government benefits. They may be human beings, but you narrowly describe them as free riders, something which is of great interest to Onts, who see everyone else’s free riding, but not their own.

The Ont does not think city governments should tolerate homeless people on downtown streets. Onts have characterized homeless people as drug addicts and self-indulgent people who should get a job or sit in jail making license plates. Homeless people command a lot of city services, particularly visits to the local emergency room. Taxes support the well-being of free riders, a divisive issue with Onts.

Onts are concerned about moral hazard, the inducement to take on more risk when a person doesn’t have to suffer the consequences. If an Ont gave a homeless person some money, that person would probably spend it on drugs, putting themselves further at risk. The Ont is doing a noble act by not encouraging the ruinous behavior of a homeless person.

If you are a Uti, you think that the practical solution is the right solution in an imperfect world. You care about the homeless person because you care about yourself and can’t stand the thought that you live in a society that would permit such human tragedy. Do you go downtown and hand out some of your savings to those homeless people to show you care? Well, maybe that wouldn’t be practical, you tell yourself.

A Uti recognizes moral hazard but doesn’t crusade against it the way that an Ont does. People put themselves at risk because they don’t bear the consequences of their risky behavior. Yes, we’d like to minimize that, but we don’t want to put others at even more risk because the community ultimately bears the consequences of their risky behavior.

A Uti lives in the real world, an imperfect version of the imagined utopia of the Ont. Yes, things are supposed to work a certain way, but “frictions” – messy entanglements – interfere with the perfect. The Uti wields his scythe, cutting the harvest while the Ont hoists his pickaxe and joins the crusade against the unholy.

A thousand years ago, Pope Urban II called on Christians in Europe to free the Holy Land from the Muslim infidels. The Pope appears on his balcony above the faithful crowds at the Vatican. At his rallies, President Trump emerges from his big plane and speaks to the devoted crowd. Think of President Trump wearing a pope hat embroidered with “MMGA” – Make Me Great Again.

Like the crusades of old, 136 Congressmen joined the army behind Texas’ attempt to get the Supreme Court to nullify the electoral votes of four battleground states. The court told them to turn in their pickaxes and go home. An Ont clings to their conviction that their solution is right even when it is not practical. If challenged, an Ont redefines the issue.

The practical problem that an Ont wants to solve is how to be right on every issue. The Ont is a Uti in disguise. The Uti use an Ont maneuver when they define the practical solution as the right solution in an imperfect world.

When both wrestlers in any argument take their robes off, it is difficult to tell them apart. As the two wrestlers circle each other, bystanders cheer on their favorite fighter but it is the bystanders who get hurt in a tangle between two political heavyweights. Media companies profit hugely; we are both the unpaid performers and the spectators of the political and cultural circus.

Who knew that philosophy could be so much fun?

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Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

Charitable Giving

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This is the time of year when many people reach out to their favorite charities.  Consider a charity that is helping with disaster relief after SuperStorm Sandy, provides meals for families and seniors, provides housing assistance for those in need, and so much more.  No, it is not the Red Cross, the Meals on Wheels program or Habitat for Humanity.  The charity is the U.S. government.  They are desperately in need of funds.  As they help clean up after Sandy, they have not even finished paying for damages from hurricane Katrina that battered Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in 2005.  Anyone can donate online at the U.S. Treasury.  As with other charities, you can use a credit card.

During and since the drafting of the U.S. Constitution over two hundred years ago, we have argued over the wording of the “general welfare” clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8).  James Madison, a Federalist and chief drafter of the Constitution, said that the phrase was a limited power conferred on the federal government; that “general welfare” meant that welfare which applied to all the people.  You can read Federalist Paper No. 41 for his more lengthy explanation of this controversial phrase.

The anti-Federalists, always suspicious of the powers given to a large and powerful central government, replied that “general welfare” could mean anything.  What, they argued, was to prevent this newly formed Federal Government from becoming a charity?

Madison scoffed, arguing that the taxing power was restricted to only those taxes which were uniform throughout the country.  The taxing power is specified in the same sentence as the “general welfare” clause, separated only by a semicolon.  Therefore, it was preposterous that anyone could argue that “general welfare” could mean anything.

Alexander Hamilton, also a Federalist and an advocate of a strong Federal Government, argued that the “general welfare” clause was essentially a plenary power given to Congress, in line with its power to spend.  To the anti-Federalists, this violated the spirit of the Constitution which was designed to enumerate, or limit, the powers of central government.

In short, Madison says general welfare is limited by the taxing power that immediately follows.  Hamilton says it is not limited because Congress’ power to spend is not limited. 

United States vs. Butler in 1936 and Helvering vs. Davis in 1937 were two Supreme Court decisions that sided with Hamilton.  What the anti-Federalists had warned about was about to come true.  The U.S. Government was on its way to becoming – over the next 75 years – the largest charity in the world.

Some think that charity should be part of a government’s role; although some of those would argue that charity should not be the chief role of a government, as it is now.  Some argue that charity should not be in the hands of government.

Many of us will receive appeals from many charities during this season of giving.  The Treasury does not mail appeals for money despite the fact that it is performing the same helpful acts as other charities.  Charity Navigator, a charity watch dog organization, does not rate the U.S. Treasury for its management of the funds it receives.  But the Treasury really does need the money as it helps to feed, cloth and house millions of people each month.