"I promise that if a poll were taken, the vast majority of taxpayers would agree to have some of their tax dollars go to help the tsunami victims."
The problem ethically with that is that it is not, nor would it ever be 100%... Since the vast majority of Americans want their money to go to help the tsunami victims (I'm sure that's true) why do we need the government to use FORCE to collect the cash?
Let individuals decide what they should do with the resources God gave them, we will indeed come through (as we're coming through now...)--besides there's no personal virtue in our tax money (read forced expropriations)being used for charitable purposes.
This is the epidome of the liberal LACK of care..."let the government do it!" which I think you find the areas of the country with the most liberal populations are the LEAST giving to charities... Folks with attitude's like Al Gore, who in 1999 with a $400,000+ income gave away $200.
"There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to his head."
-- P.J. O'Rourke
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
- James Madison criticizing an attempt to grant public monies for charitable means, 1794