Unintended Consequences of Compassion

A few days ago tornados and storms ripped through the southern states of our country. The latest that I’ve seen is that over 55 people lost their lives and many more were injured and lost property. While I normally support President Bush, I do not support everything he does. This is one of those cases.

In a press release, President Bush stated that the federal government would provide financial aid to these people. At first blush many people might say that is the right thing to do. However, let’s think it through and look at some unintended consequences.

Does the federal government do this for every family that loses lives and property? I don’t have anything to support this, but I feel certain they don’t. If not, why now? Just because of the size of the tragedy? Is this tragedy any worse for a family that lost loved ones or property in this storm than for a family that may have lost the same in a smaller storm that only affected that one family? How big does a tragedy need to be for the federal government to take responsibility for helping with restitution? 15 people? 20? 30? 50? Let’s say that any tragedy that takes 20 or more lives and/or $5 million of damage then the federal government will step in to help. Whatever number you set is arbitrary and unfair to those who suffer as much, but don’t have enough other people suffering with them. The number of people affected shouldn’t be the deciding factor.

The federal government doesn’t and shouldn’t come to the aid of every single person who has a catastrophe or bad luck. Our government would quickly go broke. But, I wonder if they should aid anyone?

How does insurance come into play? Let’s say that 10 families suffered equal losses, and that 5 of those families had insurance which covered (at least from a financial perspective) their losses. What happens when the government steps in to help those 5 families that did not have insurance? You then send exactly the wrong message to people.

First of all, you encourage those who didn’t have insurance to not get it in the future. After all, why pay good money for insurance if the government will cover you if you don’t have it? What kind of predicament will those folks be in if the next tragedy isn’t large enough in terms of total losses for them to qualify for federal aid?

What message does that send to their neighbors who sacrificed getting a new car or something because they paid their insurance premiums? Wouldn’t you be ticked off if for 15 years you paid the premiums on your insurance and then when a tornado blew up your house along with your neighbor’s you ended up having your insurance company pay for yours (after deductibles), and raise your rates, while your neighbor got a check from the Government? Wouldn’t some people be encouraged to drop their insurance and let the Government cover it next time?

Am I totally uncompassionate? Absolutely not! I feel bad for those families, and agree there should be some help for them. I just don’t believe the US Government should attempt to be the safety net for everybody. And I totally disagree with the arbitrariness of who they decide to help and who they don’t.

What this boils down to is responsibility. People need to step up and take responsibility for their own lives. Sadly, many people are simply the tail on the dog. They go through life allowing others to make important decisions that adversely affect their lives and then they complain about it. Or they don’t plan for emergencies and contingencies (financial and otherwise) in their families, and they expect the government or others to sweep in when there is a problem to fix it for them. Many have the mentality that they “deserve” help from someone.

So, in thinking this through myself, I wondered about the people who do all they can for their families—making sacrifices all along the way—and it isn’t enough. I’m still not convinced that the government should step in to help instead of churches and other charitable organizations, but let’s say that we accept the fact that they will. First of all, there must be some families that could have budgeted their money better and prepared for a tragedy, and some that did all they could, but it was not enough. How do you tell the differences when you decide to help those in need? The needs are immediate, so it would be too time consuming and expensive to screen those who you were going to help. Understanding that you were probably going to be giving money to some people who gamed the system, it may still be cheaper to pay out money to everyone than to go through the time and expense of identifying who really deserves it.

It seems to me that churches (that incorrectly assumes that everyone belongs to a church) or local governments would be closer to the people and could more easily identify who needed help. However, that also introduces the same level of arbitrariness that I mentioned before. Additionally, the local governments could easily play favorites and give more money to people who didn’t need it as long as they were friends or relatives.

Do you just say that all the waste and fraud is just a cost of doing business to help people in need? Or, is the ultimate solution to not have government, at any level, provide aid to people in trouble? I still tend to lean toward self-reliance and voluntary charity. (“Voluntary Charity” is actually redundant, but “Forced Charity” through taxes requires me to make this distinction.) In my mind, helping individuals (no matter how many are grouped together) should not be a role of the federal government.