described by Payton Papers, an organization that studies the subject, as “America’s virtue,” it seems philanthropy is certainly one of our greatest pastimes as the USA leads the world in private gifting. however, recent declarations of conspicuous generosity by Bill Gates and his bud, Warren Buffet, provoked interesting public debate.

a post i read somewhere online was to the effect that perhaps Gates and Buffet should donate their money to the government, instead.

well…this is what i think about that:

• the government would never manage the monies well enough to do any good, as evident in the current state of our economy
• Congress takes away every great opportunity to pump real money into our financial pipeline, like restricting amounts and eligibility for fully deductible IRA contributions, thereby curtailing and discouraging saving
• Congress allows the banking/credit card industry to charge usurous rates and a multitude of service fees, generating a higher return on their investment than the public can ever get on interest-bearing accounts or investments
• Congress readily grants funding to frivilous projects, then costs us taxpayers even more money to subsidize the sub-committee for the sub-committee to investigate the frivilous spending
• Congress grants funding to international projects before taking care of our own public needs, first
• our government would never be successfully run as a big business, as evident in Ross Perot’s losing presidential campaign platform
• labor unions have destroyed any notion of economic checks and balance in the workplace, to say nothing of sensible or equitable compensation
• social programs favoring illegal aliens perpetuate hostility among our own workers
• when it takes 3 outsourced individuals to do the work of 1 American, there’s something wrong with the accounting
• we don’t need more study or research programs, we need our educational systems to be funded and teachers relieved of enough of their bureaucratic paperwork to actually allow time to teach

that’s where i think it makes sense to contribute largely to our society, as the lyrics of Graham Nash admonishes:

Teach your children well
Their father’s hell
Will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picks
The one you’ll know by.

the old adage is that knowledge is power, ergo education is power. the American way is that money is power. philanthropy is driven by powerful money. put it all together, if the level of philanthropy available to the Billionaire Boys Club was put toward funding education where government fails, our own citizens just might be able to compete with the rest of the emerging world powers we’re so willing to support.