Does Charity Begin At Home… Or Does It Start With Uncle Sam?

When they learned of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, Americans reached first for their TV knobs, next for their checkbooks. Prodded by jarring images of bloodied children, dazed victims and griefstricken families, they sent millions of dollars pouring into Oklahoma City. American Red Cross officials said more than $100,000 was donated in Spokane County alone. Nationwide, the total approached $7 million in the first week. It was more than needed to do the job in Oklahoma City, and much of it went into the Red Cross’ national disaster fund.

This spontaneous outpouring seems to contradict a steady decline in the amount Americans give to private charities during the past four years .

Public welfare programs, meanwhile, are hardly at the zenith of poularity. In Congress and many state legislatures, Democrats and Republicans alike are debating not whether to reform welfare but how.

Reform isn’t enough for the system’s loudest critics; they want to eliminate welfare altogether.

Charles Murray, oft-quoted senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says the sooner the flow of tax dollars to the needy dries up, the better it will be.

Once the federal public assistance machinery is dismantled, Murray has argued, churches and other private, non-profit charitable institutions at the community level will step forward to take care of those in genuine need - more efficiently and more constructively.

Will they?

A couple of weeks ago, Spokesman-Review readers were asked if the charitable spirit displayed after the Oklahoma City tragedy could somehow be substituted for the welfare system now underwritten so grudgingly by taxpayers.

Some of those who responded declared the theory a pipe dream. Others said, just look, private efforts are flourishing now. Still others said both systems, public and private, are essential.

It isn’t a question of whether private giving should replace government aid, said Dorothy Ross, coordinator of the Women, Infant and Children nutrition program at Spokane’s West Central Community Center, but whether it could - and her answer is no.

Since 1985, she noted, Washington state’s infant mortality rate has improved dramatically, thanks to a variety of resources including tax dollars.

“We didn’t do it by creating one-size-fits-all approaches, but by providing public funding to community-based efforts through health departments, community clinics, non-profit agencies and others.”

The spontaneous outpouring that followed Oklahoma City may be misleading, various readers commented. The vivid and dramatic news accounts that directed national attention to one tragedy can’t be refocused as sharply on the daily, faceless need on countless fronts across the country. And the many community agencies that do deal with those conditions already are squeezed for resources.

Besides, said Linda Stone of The Children’s Alliance in Spokane, federal programs are perceived, inaccurately, as “directed solely by blind bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.”

Most of the funds local agencies handle come from federal sources but are managed by local boards, said Stone.

“This ‘blind bureaucracy’ actually in most cases includes our neighbors and friends - people who care about their community and who come together to focus the combined strength of targeted federal and state funds and community contributions and guidance,” she said.

Bernard O. Nelson is the regional director in Spokane of the Department of Social and Health Services, the state agency that handles public assistance programs. He also has been on the private-sector United Way’s board of directors. Public-private partnerships may not be a panacea, and state and federal governments may need to reduce their roles, but those roles will continue to be imporant, said Nelson.

“The states need to make a commitment to encouraging partnership efforts since localities will continue to require active assistance and appropriate legal, financial and administrative tools from their state governments,” he said.

Here are other comments readers shared about turning public assistance responsibility over to private sources: “It’s a nice idea but it is doomed to failure” because of society’s negative attitudes toward the needy, said Brad Starkey of Spokane.

“People … give from the heart to the victims of these tragedies (such as the Oklahoma City bombing),” agreed James A. Nelson of Spokane. “On the other hand most people feel welfare recipients are not innocent victims but are in their position by choice, even though in many instances this is not the case. Therefore they would not contribute for welfare programs,” Nelson added.

“If this newspaper were as concerned with the daily traumas of people in poverty, kept there by the policies which are supported on the editorial page, (as with the Oklahoma City victims), then the public might show more kindness to their neighbors in need,” said Morton Alexander, Spokane.

Several readers noted private charity is at work already.

“The local Unity Church has a wonderful buck-a-month club that has assisted in Crosswalk, Transitional Living Center and the Bridge School, and I think a lot of local money is going for local relief,” said Mary True of Spokane.

“No single government agency or office provides human care services in Spokane,” noted Rob Fukai, chairman-elect of the United Way of Spokane County Board of Directors. “It is local agencies, like Excelsior and the Visiting Nurses and the Spokane Food Bank that develop and effectively use a partnership of public and private funds to serve the needs of our community,” said Fukai.

LeAnna Benn of Spokane suggested a variety of strategies for harnessing private giving - from officially turning over much of the governmental role to churches and local agencies, and letting beneficiaries choose where to go to have their needs met, to offering tax incentives to private givers.

“Many of the needs are emotional and money is used to buy off the needy rather than to actually help solve the root problem,” added Benn.

“If there are areas of welfare law that are not working, fix them,” said Agnes Duncan, Spokane. “But don’t throw out the baby with the bath water and think everything is fixed by putting an extra burden on the generous people of this world so the fat cats can pay less income tax.”

MEMO: Interactive editor Doug Floyd would like to hear from you. He can be reached at 999 W. Riverside, Spokane, WA 99201, or at (509) 459-5466, or by fax at (509) 459-5098, or e-mail at celh27b@prodigy.com