...a noble idea, Tom. Too bad there has been so little of it.

In general:

What we commonly remember as "private sector charity" turns out to have been financed by whatever church was the dominant denomination in the community. Until the disestablishment of religion codified by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, nations had established (that is to say, state) churches. Colonies, too -- Virginia and Massachusetts, to name two. It only looked like charity: tithing was expected, and sometimes enforced by decree.

In particular:

The reason so many of the social programs we have under the Federal umbrella wound up there is because some states abdicated their responsibilities toward their poor, their children, their elderly. There was little private support and less government support for any help. Activists who sought to change things found themselves fighting an uphill battle against entrenched local authorities, and sought Federal remedies.

Some of the more open-handed states also sought Federal involvement. I remember the welfare debate in New York when I was growing up. The concensus among the grown-ups was that welfare support for families was a good thing, and that people shouldn't have to wait a year and starve the babies to get relief. (Also, the idea was that an undernourished adult made a weak and inattentive worker and was less employable.) "But what," they asked among themselves, "can we do about people who are migrating up here from [what was unabashedly called] the wretched South because the pittance we call welfare is a king's ransom compared to a day's wages there?" Those people wanted Federal intervention to level the playing field, and make it possible for the poor to stay home instead of travelling to where the better pensions were.

It helps to understand how these things grew, in their generalities and in their particulars, so we can stop pining for the good old days that never were.

Are our students smarter and better educated now than they were before there was a Department of Education?

I'm going to answer that by ignoring the implication that the Dept of Ed is supposed to educate the children. I'm not a big fan of the Dept of Ed, but its creation has had some interesting unforseen consequences: the collection, collation and distribution of massive numbers of documents and resources, a huge number of which are now available online and all of which are available for free through Federal depository libraries in every state, that support educational activities. These resources are available to public and private schools, to nursery schools and Head Start programs, to adult literacy and ESL programs, and to home schoolers. It's not the same as twanging the kids with a magic wand and having them recite the Pythagorian theorum, but this isn't Oz, either. Private money might have been able to do this, but it wouldn't have had the clout or the mandate.

Are there fewer poor? Are there fewer destitute? Look back at the 1930s and tell me that those people were better off without the safety net.

Are more poor families intact today? You blame a complex phenomenon like divorce on welfare? OK, then, in that spirit: are we more aware of and less tolerant of domestic abuse, which "kept families together", than we were before? Granted, families were more cohesive economic units before that heightened awareness. People tend to stick together when some of them are afraid to leave the house.

Is health care cheaper and more available than it was 20 years ago? For whom? Isn't it true that the cost of health insurance for all of us is driven up by the cost of caring for the uninsured and underinsured who show up at emergency rooms for acute problems that could have been treated more economically in a subsidized clinic? Or are you saying that it's better to leave people with no health insurance without care? Do you remember that tuberculosis (consumption) was epidemic in this country because of a large pool of infected, untreated poor wandering the streets? It could happen again.

Is there a single major wealth redistribution scheme that has actually solved a problem? Well, the CEOs of many major companies have managed to solve the retirement problems of the CEOs of many major companies... ;) You're thinking like an engineer. These are people. If you push one way, there's a reaction somewhere else. But yes, I would say that, just for starters, the elderly as a group (not just the well-off elderly) have a fighting chance to make ends meet thanks to government intervention into retirement. Before the government got into the act, some people worked their whole lives and had nothing in old age. Government-sponsored vaccination programs have reduced the rate of infectious disease dramatically. Student grant and loan programs have allowed thousands of promising young people to get a higher education and improve their lives.

And this massive money dump is mislabeled "investment?" Dump?? Sez you, Tom.

Regards--
Mary Anne