Centroles wrote:Like I said, only faith based organization t0hat don't have any catches for this aid, ones like the Salvation Army, would qualify.
Okay, where we left, off, the First Amendment will not permit the federal government to dictate to faith based organization what 'catches' cannot be allowed. Even the Salvation Army has been known to attach a brief sermon to a free meal and dictate terms to a recipient--how about you sweep out the warehouse and we'll see what we can do--to preserve a guy's dignity and let him feel like a regular person working for a living for a change.
Charities are far more likely to move people from a sense of entitlement into a much more productive attitude of 'temporary condition' than will government programs that include no 'catches'. This is another reason private charity is often far more effective and is far less likely to encourage people to settle into a more or less comfortable existance of lifetime handouts.
Charities designed to benefit only their own denomination or group, of course, should be ineligible for government monies, but those who serve the general public regardless of religious affiliation, etc., should be allowed to be who they are and do what they do. Make them operate as the government operates, and you gain little or nothing.
Personally I think I would like to see the government get out of the charity business altogether and rather provide incentives for people to increase charitable giving--maybe straight tax writeoffs as well as deductions, etc. Government charity is a relatively new phenomenon mostly occuring since the 1940's. Some good is done, of course, but the problems that have resulted from it are legion.
