I'm just not a "spread it around" kinda guy. I'm all for helping other people but people also have to be willing to help themselves. If I leave it up to the government to decide who should be helped then there's major problems with inefficiency, waste, and sometimes downright corruption. Those same things can happen with charities as well but with charities I can reward those that distribute my money more effectively. I can't do that when government is my charity.
When government is the charity and people are legally compelled to give, I also lose any moral benefit from giving and helping others. If you've ever sarificed to help someone else, you know what I'm talking about. It feels good to feel like you're making a change to better someone else's life and situation. When my money is forcibly taken by the government there's no feel good sense from having done the right thing and helped someone else. When there is no choice, there is no benefit to having made the right choice.
There's also the issue of practicing what you preach. If Obama is such a big fan of spreading it around, why doesn't he do it in his personal life? According to Bloomberg the Obama's donated a total - a TOTAL - of $10,772 from 2000 - 2004. Now it did jump in subsequent years but still amounted to only about 5% of their total income. I'm certainly no standard of charitable giving or philantrophist in the making but I give a far larger percentage of my income to charity than does Obama. A FAR larger. Just last year my charitable giving was larger than Obama's total giving from 2000 - 2004. There's just something wrong with someone wanting to spread your money around but not being willing to do the same with his.
