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ECON 120: Privatization of Goods
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Ezra Gingerich
Nov 29, 2021
Hi Julie! I enjoyed reading your post on privatization, and I agree with what you are saying. I believe privatizing a lot of “public” entities would be good. One such theory I have would largely privatize social welfare programs. For starters, I believe 501(c)(3)s such as churches should play a more active role in giving back directly to their communities. I realize a good amount of 501(c)(3)s already do a more than adequate job at this, but there are thousands who do not. I realize the reason these entities are tax exempt is because they do, supposedly, contribute to their communities. But, let’s say there are minimums set into place for them. That is, these tax free entities are required to submit documentation each year proving they have contributed a certain amount to their local homeless shelter, community project, etc. This “contribution” could be in the form of volunteer hours, monetary contributions, etc. For example, a church could either send volunteers to their local soup kitchen, or they could donate money, food, etc. Or, they could start their own soup kitchen, start and contribute to their own community project, etc. In addition, private individuals, companies, and such would also be incentivized more to give directly back to their communities rather than having all their tax dollars filter through the sticky fingers of our government. This project, as a whole, would throw money directly back into the community rather than filtering it through the greedy fingers of bureaucrats who have little to no accountability. It would help set a basic standard for tax free entities (and others) to follow, thus preventing these countless groups from taking advantage of the system and their fellow Americans. This theory may have a lot of holes, but I enjoy toying with it. One problem could be that, yes, we get rid of a lot of bureaucrats, but how many new bureaucrats need to be hired to run this new program? I dare say we would still end up with an advantage here, but that is not certain. Another potential problem could be the government setting unfair standards. For example, a crooked bureaucrat in charge of a certain area could decide to enforce the standards more for a church than he does for a non-religious 501(c)3, but I find it hard to believe this would not also be relatively easy to keep in check by instating processes to watch such behavior. Overall, this theory would need more work, of course, but I think certain aspects of such privatization welfare programs could be very beneficial to all parties involved.
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Ezra Gingerich

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