Dragonlady
Designing Woman
Religious charity is spotty, at best, and like tax dollars, those paying want the money used closed to home, which means none of it makes it into poor communities. In Georgia, a number of wealthy enclaves incorporated their communities into towns, hiring out the running of the town to private interests, all to ensure that their property taxes weren't going to educate the children of the poor.
Even within well-to-do communities, there are always those going through difficult times, and a wish to help those we know go through those periods when through bad times or bad decisions we find ourselves in those situations.
During the Great Depression, and the recent Great Recession, the depth of the poverty and suffering was such that charities were overwhelmed.
During the Great Depression, the poverty and suffering threatened the very foundations of societies throughout the world, leading to mass migrations of populations, and the destruction of communities. Even though millions lost their homes and their jobs in the Great Recession, federal programs, from unemployment benefits, to food stamps, and welfare prevented the kind of mass displacement of people, and the instability of mass migration, seen in the 1930's.
Business and corporate interests are best served by stable governments, with a strong infrastructure. The US is a very stable government, with a meh infrastructure. You are now competing with countries in Europe for jobs, e.g. Ireland.
Ireland has a stable government, and is 15th in the world education rankings (the US is 29th), has 10% corporate tax, and top notch infrastructure. The climate's not bad, everyone speaks English, universal government funded health care. Let's go there.
Canada has a stable government, and is 10th in the world education rankings, has 25% corporate tax, and top notch infrastructure. The climate is doable, in the south and west, everyone outside of of Quebec speaks English, universal government funded health care. Let's go there.
There are at least 10 more countries on that list that are getting the investment and the jobs that require smart, well-educated workers, stability and infrastructure.
While the rest of the world dug their way out of the recession with infrastructure projects to keep people working, and prepare for the 21st Century economy, Republicans voted against such spending so that Obama would be a one-term President. While countries like Canada, Great Britain, and Germany, spent money re-training workers whose jobs were out-sourced, the US left millions of production workers to drift.
While countries in Asia, Europe, and Australia and Canada, ensure that all children get equal funding in education, and that what is taught is not influenced by either politics or religion, Americans continue to do the opposite. Since the 1980's, when Reagan championed parents' rights in educating their children, rich Americans have been insisting that their children be taught conservative, fundamentalist values, which deny science (and logic). As a result, the test scores of American children continue to plummet in basic subjects such as math and science, meaning that Americans will be ill suited to lead the world in science and technology as they have for the past 150 years.
In their eagerness to ensure that Obama was a one-term President, the Republicans may have done more damage to the future economy of the USA, than you will ever know, destroying America's ability to compete for at least 20 years, and that's if you could suddenly regain and catch up what was lost, which you can't, and which you most certainly won't under a Trump administration.
First the Republicans wrecked the economy, then they wrecked the recovery, and now you've re-elected them to finish the job they started on the economy. Now that the elites have taken over the White House and the Cabinet, and there is no need to bribe politicians any more, I strongly suspect that as long as members of the current administration get theirs, they really don't give a shit about the rest of you.
