are donations to govt really donations??

so bcoz of the recent earthquake in nepal donating to prime minister’s relief fund is what’s hot on cyber space in india here. a couple of questions strike me: 1) lets says nobody donates any money-the govt will still carry out the relief work as planned(the relief expense would still be a very small burden on the indian govt given the indian GDP’s size, even if the burden is large the govt is bound to take relief actions on grounds of morality) 2)all the relief expense will be collected back by the govt by way of higher taxes in the future years. so if ur donating ur reducing the future tax liablities and since taxes are borne more by the rich ur essentially donating ur wealth to the rich! your thoughts?

Well, the American government is donating a whole 10 MILLION dollars. (http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/27/news/nepal-earthquake-donations/)

So now they can only have 8848 tanks instead of 8850. Or 3500 cruise missiles instead of 3510. The sacrifices made are awe-inspiring.

How much did Nepal give to help with Katrina or other US disasters?

what i am asking is…if u contributed to the fund that was set up by us govt to help nepal earthquake victims,are u really donating to those earthquake victims???

so US shouldnt have helped haiti either bcoz haiti didnt help with katrina or other us disasters?

When my rich neighbor volunteers to help pay for my child’s non-covered health care, should I complain because his contribution was not much as compared to the Bentley in his driveway? I just have a hard time claiming my neighbor’s stuff as my own. Bill Gates owes me nothing. I just would be thankful if he sent a $100 dollars my way, even if his motive was just to make himself feel or look good.

$10MM in cash, plus 70 aid workers and 45 square tons of supplies.

Well what more do you want the U.S. to do?!

EVEN IF THEY GAVE us coordinates, which they haven’t, BTW, there’s hardly anything left standing to bomb right now.

US gives a lot of aid to countries that most likely end up pocketing it.

That’s a good point actually, that Nepal government will probably squander the relief money or possibly even lose it to corruption (like those $10 billion of food rations in India). It’s better to give money to Red Cross or other international NGOs. Even if they are 80% inefficient, they are still probably better than direct aid.

^Give it to the Mormons. I suspect the LDS Church is one of the most efficient aid organizations in the world.

edit - And I’m dead serious about this.

10 million is the largest contribution I think so far. It pales in comparison to the fact that the Kuwaitis gave 500 million during Katrina but I suppose we haven’t reached that level of emergency yet. If the second earthquake hits then I suppose things will really get messy. It’s curious that the English are nowhere to be seen though. The Chinese government has stepped up and sent relief packages, the Indian government has sent regiments to assist in logistics and the only thing the English have done is extend their condolences and sent a team of 9 ‘experts’. The Nepali reaction when the English come around next time to recruit the gorkhas should be interesting.

To be fair, Chinese efforts are not purely humanitarian in Nepal. But that is how foreign aid is supposed to work, it is not charity despite what ohai and itera think.

Donation to the government is still donation because tax is mandatory, donation is discretionary.