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.
Consider: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
The USGS and NOAA knew of a seismic event of 8.0+ off the coast of Sumtra as it happened and a few hours before the waves strcuk. As I understand it, the word went out to authorities in the region. If the word had reached the cities on the coasts of India, Bangledesh, Sumatra, Thailand, and Sri Lanka in the intervening hours, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saveed and this stupid argumant of how stingy the United States is wouldn't be happening.
I think if we warned them well in advance and the warnings would simply have been heeded, we were being extraordinarily generous where it counts and saving everybody millions, or even billions, of dollars in relief.
This is one taxpayer who thinks the world was given plenty long before the disaster hit.
"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
Problem is that when American's incur damage to property they have to apply to get "low interest rate" loans from FEMA that take months to qualify and have to repay the "tax dollars already paid into the system. US Governments forgives loans, to other countries but we can't help our own. As taxpayer I don't mind helping tsunami victims but.... expect our tax dollars to help us. I don't see US fixing our slum areas or providing aid to our own UNLESS they are ILLEGAL.
I think the "vast majority of taxpayers [who want] some of their tax dollars go to help tsunami victims" -- I am one of such taxpayers -- should be able to give their own money directly to the charity of their choice rather than have it taken from them via taxes and given by the government without consent.
So where exactly is this US500 Million going?
Ok...lets use that premis.
Then how much of your money should we send?
I say it should be all of YOUR money because YOU want to help.
I'll bet if a poll was taken and it asked...."What if the government was to take all of your pay for one year....to give to the tsunami victims.....would you like to do this?
I'll bet there are some who would like to do this....but how much is the question...and who is it up to figure out how much we are to pay.
You see, it is up to the individual......not the government to give to charity.
For money stolen and given to someone else is not charity. It is money laundering.