Not Yours to Give

After the tsunami the company I work for sent out an email addressing it. More precisely, the head honcho for North America sent out an email to all the North American employees. He stated that he was donating to the Red Cross a fairly sizable amount of money. He encouraged everyone to do what they thought was right and here were some links where they might give.

I was impressed at the time that the company itself was no donating any company funds. Just like I am . . . Chagrined by companies the do give. And why I don't invest in companies that are "socially aware."

I don't think that a company has the right to give away funds that belong to the shareholders. That money should be put back into the company or paid out in dividends so those that have netted a profit can donate as they see fit.

I feel the same way about the government in the US too but with reservations. I mean, doing the right thing is a good thing, and sometimes it takes a business like a government to apply the money and logistics to accomplish a task in the face of emergency. But the money spent is not theirs to give. The money collected through taxes and fines and tariffs are to maintain the government. [Don't get me started on social programs in the US. That's a separate post.]

There should never be a surplus to give away. And going in to debt to assist an interest outside the US . . . I'd rather not.

The logic of course is that we vote for our representation and they vote to give whatever resources they think we would want them to give. Let's just say that they haven't asked my opinion lately and when they've made choices counter to mine . . . they don't get my vote next time around (unless of course the idiot they are running against would be a worse choice. Dangit!)

I found the story below that illustrates what I'm trying vainly to communicate:

" . . . One day in the House of Representatives a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:
"Mr. Speaker--I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on this floor knows it.

"We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I ever heard that the government was in arrears to him.

"Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

"He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.
Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation: . . . ."

Originally published in "The Life of Colonel David Crockett," by Edward Sylvester Ellis, 1884