[triceratops]

> how many of us gave even $100 to an organization helping the homeless?

I did.

> How many of us even did the basic research to find a suitable organization to donate to (rather than just tossing that money at a charity run like a big government initiative)?

You may sneer at "big government". But the advantage of having an efficient government that does good work is people can simply throw their money at it and assume that things will be taken care of. By making everyone do research, it increases the barrier to help for a lot of people . Not everyone has the time or knows what to look for in a good charitable org.

Imagine if government health inspectors didn't exist and you had to rely on Yelp reviews and word of mouth to decide if a restaurant was clean enough to eat at.

> Your donation is tax deductible.

Only if you itemize taxes. Most renters do not. And it's a deduction to taxable income, not a tax credit.

[mdip]

  > the advantage of having an efficient government that does good work is people can simply throw their money at it and assume that things will be taken care of

We have the government we have. It is far from efficient, and I'm not sure how it could be more efficient at solving this particular problem since what we're really trying to "solve" is the outcome of a number of problems that took place in that person's life. Those are going to be related, sometimes, to things unique to that area which will not be solved easily from hundreds of miles away.

Unfortunately, what usually occurs is this large, resource-heavy (financially both directly and indirectly) organization becomes a really attractive target for people wanting to do things other than "help the homeless". And I'm not really picking entirely on government here. There are some very large charities that have made the mistake of attempting to centrally manage these sorts of assistance programs. It doesn't work as well as moving that money to local organizations that are already demonstrating their effectiveness.

  > Imagine if government health inspectors didn't exist and you had to rely on Yelp reviews and word of mouth to decide if a restaurant was clean enough to eat at.

I sort-of laughed at this -- I've made the opposite argument time and again. How many times have I visited Yelp before "eating adventurously" because I have zero trust[0] in the effectiveness of a government health inspector to keep me safe. Yes, they check a lot of stuff -- much of it meaningless, and it's as good as department involved, the inspector and the things they check (where I live, that can really vary, and where my family has a home, the restaurant owner was the mayor, the chief of police[0]). On the flip side, Yelp reviews have been incredibly reliable at me avoiding bad food, dirty restaurants/bathrooms and -- I suspect -- food sickness.

To be clear: I'm not saying taking away government inspections wouldn't result in things being worse than they are, today. I'm simply saying that given the choice between the two, I'd feel safer in a world with Yelp and no government inspections than the other way around[1]. I don't have data to back it up, and I'm one of those people that always looks up a place before we eat (my wife usually beats me too it, though). The "fun" stories I used to hear from my high-on locker partner about how he "got that large arm bandage" cooking at Ram's Horn... you don't want to know.

Outside of restaurants, I would trust a large number of positive reviews (assuming appropriate context) for a hair stylist who is unlicensed (hypothetically, since I've never really paid any attention to the funny looking document hanging by the mirror -- I assume I've never visited an unlicensed stylist, but I can't be certain) over a stylist with a license and no reviews.

There's a whole lot of services I'd be willing to ditch the government side for commercial options that didn't exist when the government option was created. I don't believe there's an adequate replacement for credentialing for doctors/surgeons, but -- even in those scenarios, if I have a choice, I'm going to research the hell out of that doctor -- the government-only solutions are helpful, but they're part of a broader set of data -- much of which are not/can't realistically be provided from the government source.

  > ... taxable income ...

... it must have been very late at night and considering I just went through this, recently, I shouldn't have had such a large brain-fart. And yes, you must itemize. Where I live, that's extremely common (though, less so since the last tax code changes). Renting is rare because it is usually less -- on purely monthly mortgage payments -- to own. Most will choose to have more money in their pocket every month, especially if it comes with something they can sell later. Even as a deduction, though, you can have a warm and fuzzy feeling that you've slightly reduced the amount of money you pay to things you don't support (assuming you don't support the vast majority of what the government spends your money on).

[0] And had tens of visible violations -- one of which wagged its tail, looked longingly at me and occasionally left a foul-smelling gift. We loved the place, were never sick, and we ate there twice most weekends for three summers (as did many local celebrities, which was one of the reasons we loved the place).

[1] I've put a little though to this one over the years ... Family who owned restaurants/personal/friends/family experience in food service. I have a sibling who was a C-Level exec at the company who's logo is on all of the equipment in the kitchen (I've even seen it on flatware) at practically every legally operating restaurant in the US (look at the soft drink machine for three letters in a circle -- they're one of those weird ubiquitous logos, like UL, that once pointed out, you see everywhere)