{"id":5654,"date":"2012-08-20T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T16:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/?p=5654"},"modified":"2012-12-29T01:50:30","modified_gmt":"2012-12-29T06:50:30","slug":"the-us-government-a-charity-that-under-performs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/2012\/the-us-government-a-charity-that-under-performs\/","title":{"rendered":"The US Government: A Charity That Under-Performs?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/082012_1118_TheUSGovern1.png\" width=\"643\" height=\"466\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/econlog.econlib.org\/archives\/2012\/04\/why_are_donatio.html\">debate<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/bleedingheartlibertarians.com\/2012\/04\/want-higher-taxes-pay-them-yourself\/\">going <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/bigthink.com\/ideas\/why-dont-people-voluntarily-pay-more-in-taxes\">on<\/a> in economics circles about America&#8217;s performance as a charity (although things <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centives.net\/S\/2012\/offensive-advertising\/\">could be worse<\/a>). The latest entrant into the fray is Bryan Caplan:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The US government accepts donations. You can put extra money into the general fund.<\/li>\n<li>In 2011 Americans contributed about $3.2 million.<\/li>\n<li>Yet Americans give over $300 billion a year to charity. The US commands a vanishingly thin share of the overall charity market.<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>Potential ways to increase the amount of donations that the US receives include:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Having the President raise money for the country rather than for their own campaign.<\/li>\n<li>Congress acknowledging the most generous donors in an annual ceremony.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s an interesting debate that ties into wider political themes. To read more about why libertarians love to discuss this phenomenon, how this does (or doesn&#8217;t) tie into the Prisoner&#8217;s dilemma, why bringing up Warren Buffet&#8217;s contributions are a red herring, where the majority of American donations come from, and other historical details, click <a href=\"http:\/\/econlog.econlib.org\/archives\/2012\/04\/why_are_donatio.html\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/econlog.econlib.org\/archives\/2012\/04\/why_are_donatio.html\">Library of Economics and Liberty<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Via: <a href=\"http:\/\/marginalrevolution.com\/marginalrevolution\/2012\/08\/assorted-links-539.html\">Marginal Revolution<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a debate going on in economics circles about America&#8217;s performance as a charity (although things could be worse). The latest entrant into the fray is Bryan Caplan: The US government accepts donations. You can put extra money into the general fund. In 2011 Americans contributed about $3.2 million. Yet Americans give over $300 billion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bulletin","category-signature"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/082012_1118_TheUSGovern1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5654"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7427,"href":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5654\/revisions\/7427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}