Private organizations should be just that... private. If you can't raise enough money to fund your own operations, there's something wrong with your business model and your management. It should not be up to the tax payer to keep you afloat.
The argument given for the bailouts was that these businesses, the last vestige of what used to be the worlds greatest manufacturing concern - the American Automotive industry - was "too big to fail." meaning sure, it'd be nice to say "You lose this round, try again!" to GM, but since the long (republican) process of assuming that if you give big business free reign -- and their profit making will trickle downhill to the american populace -- failed. Why did it fail? Because letting big business have free reign included letting them outsource to the cheapest labor regardless of pesky human rights issues and turned China from having 12 port cities under mao to 126 under deng xiaoping, from cities barely able to support life, to metropolises 10 times the size of manhattan. We bailed out our failing industry because republican policy bled our money and jobs and livelihood overseas, and we wanted to give ourselves another chance rather than giving up and eating dirt for the next 20 years.
If you're a not-for-profit organization, that's fine. I have *no* issue with benevolent institutions like the Red Cross or even ACORN getting tax-exempt status. But, they should be able to fund themselves on donations based upon their good work, and not have to rely on my tax dollars.
Acorn was getting your tax dollars as payment for things like running Census gathering for the government. I cant say i know much about them, other than the current manufactured hoopla -- but I cant claim to care much either. You'll argue it denotes a pattern of corruption in Acorn, and I think that the fanatics who engendered these actors that exposed the supposed corruption probably had to try many times before finding just the right stories to present to make Acorn look in the worst possible light, and that they did it for political motivations.
Compassion should not be compulsory... and that's exactly what federal funding of these organizations is: the government forcing me to donate to them.
Compassion should not NEED to be compulsory in the same way that Healthcare should not NEED to be mandatory for everyone to be able to receive medical care without it costing $20k for 6 stitches. But that's what happens when a doctor needs to give you treatment that your HMO's accountant thinks you'd be perfectly off without.
... just like the bailout of GM was the government forcing me to give them money after I decided not buy their shitty cars.
I always find it hard to believe when intelligent people cant see their own hand in their destruction. I'll leave this one as an exercise to the student.
On the other hand, if you're a public institution receiving public money, you should fall under government control/regulation, and submit to public review (something that didn't happen to ACORN until this debacle).
Next paragraph has A perfect example of a public institution receiving public money falling under government control...
A perfect example of this would be my high school. I went to an all-male military boarding school that had mandatory religious services for all students once per week. How on earth could such a thing exist in this day and age? Simple... the school did not take a single cent from the federal or state government. Because they were a 100% private institution, they did not have to follow any of the mandates tied to public education money such as mandatory curriculum items, or co-ed classrooms.
Nope That's precisely the opposite of the point you're trying to make, but lets go with it.
How could such an institution survive without federal funds when public schools scrape, beg, and hold bake sales for every last cent they can get? Because they provided a superior product for which parents were willing to pay top dollar. A graduate of my school was practically guaranteed college acceptance to at least a state school, and the guys in the top 25% could pick almost any college they wanted. Furthermore, they had a thirty-year track record of taking problem teens and not just turning them around, but molding them into accomplished students with prospects.
In turn, some graduates, thankful for the opportunities provided to them by such a school became donors or scholarship sponsors. I was able to pay 1/2 my way through that school because of one of those generous individuals.
This is the same argument people who aren't sick make about healthcare, and that wealthy people make about luxuries. "If you have the means you can have the best education, the best healthcare, the most luxury."
That's fine and dandy. Ayn Rand wrote a whole bunch of books trying to hammer that idea home, and the repubs favorite boy now that he's dead (Regan) was a Randite so it ties in nicely here...
Trouble is its bull cacka. Power doesn't directly derive from merit. If it did, all the hard working blue collar people in America wouldn't have to worry about their HMOs, homes or futures, Wall Street corruption swallowing their entire industries, their pensions evaporating, or their retirement being cut -- simply because it becomes fashionable to be anti-union, or speculators over orange juice futures' bubble bursts, or whatever cockamamie financial manipulation ruins decades of hard work in an eyeblink.
But they do. and to more closely address your point -- your school was an exchange for concessions you and your parents made. Payment for private school, adherence to a specific set of religious tenets, and a militaristic education. Your education was half paid for by someone who indebted you to not only the brother-club of sponsorship and the school's network of donors, but to continuing that same cycle yourself. And lastly, the lack of government influence was replaced by your school's influence, they molded you with an education, which will always influence how you think and your base understandings.
You paid perhaps more dearly for your education (no co-ed? Sheesh), but some people would view such a regimented structure as a handicap, regardless of how personally successful you believe yourself to be. Regardless, its a price you COULD pay that perhaps others could not even have the opportunity to try to pay.
How does this relate to ACORN? It relates because private institutions who do good and honorable work shouldn't need the federal government to stay afloat. The merit of their work should get them enough private donations and/or corporate sponsors. If the organization is not worthy enough to compel the average citizen to open his wallet, why should the federal government open it for him?
Maybe they didnt need government dollars to stay afloat. Maybe at the start they provided a service that drew government attention, and a politician chose to get them federal funding to expand their operations? I honestly dont know, caring nothing about the conservative's favorite whipping company. My point is that they could have been doing good work and received those government sponsorships to expand their operation in the same way that your taxes pay for roads you may never drive on, but are glad were put there.
Again, compassion should not be compulsory.
Let them eat cake I say.
I could make the same argument about the National Endowment for the Arts. You know how artists originally worked back in the day? They had a PATRON. That's right, they found someone rich who liked what they did enough to sponsor them. If they sucked, they kept working at it until they were good enough to get a patron. Meanwhile, they held down a real job and practiced their art form in their spare time. If they were lucky, they found a master of their art to help them along, otherwise, they used their own creativity and ingenuity to develop their skill.
They certainly didn't hold their hand out for federal grant money.
If you suck at your art form so badly that no one will buy it or pay to look at it, why should I support it with my tax dollars?
If your art/music/literary school is apparently so bad at doing its job that no one will pay to go there, why should you merit receiving my tax dollars?
never heard a repub espouse the honors of Lord Patronship as an option for America. But then we have monarchists/fascists/and theocrats aplenty already.
If your museum can't draw me in to see its exhibits and get enough ticket revenue to cover costs, why should you still get to take money out of my wallet at tax time?
Riiiiight. Economic Downturn! Quick! Sell off the national treasures!
