How much better is it to tick a box on a tax form and know that your donation will go to help a homeless person? No chance of being scammed by a professional beggar, you'd think.
Turns out that anyone foolish enough to think their hard-earned cash was going to a good cause have proved P.T. Barnum right. There are suckers born every minute.
The State of Illinois considers itself a deserving charity.
Over $1 million that taxpayers donated to charity has been "borrowed" by the state to help pay its bills.
That's $1 million not passed through to those in need. Illinois considers itself far more needy.
Hungry people in eastern Illinois can go to the food bank and find....an IOU from the Illinois General Assembly. Whatever money was donated in 2009 and 2010 hasn't shown up in the group's coffers. Hard to stock a food bank with nutritious debt, isn't it?
It'll be repaid, says Kelly Kraft of the Office of Management and Budget. Why, it's the law. The money has to be returned in eighteen months.
Except that laws can be changed, and in a state with a single-party government, it's not all that difficult to manipulate the rules well after the game has begun.
Now you've been warned. If you want to donate to charity, and have your money actually go to the charity, you can't expect the government to do it for you.
Some things you have to do yourself.
Voting, for example.....
2 comments:
These debt that Illinois is trying to repay include scholarships for students from low-income families who go to my university. Without these scholarships, these students will have to drop out.
The state of Illinois also repaid its debt to my university in full which means that now educators are finally getting paid their full salaries for their work.
Do you really think these are not worthy causes?
There are as many worthy causes as stars in the sky.
But it strikes me as highly dishonest to ask a taxpayer to donate to a favored cause, and then turn around and use the money for something else, no matter how worthy that other use may be.
It would be no different if someone selected a donation to a scholarship fund, and the government decided to borrow the money to cover the cost of road repairs.
We all want good roads, but if we choose to give more for something else, what right does the State have to ignore a specific request?
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