To cure social ills and end the welfare state, look to charity, not government

Virtually every American liberal (and too many conservatives, I am sorry to tell you) make a key mistake addressing society's big issues.

They underestimate American generosity and overestimate government's power to solve anything.

If we want to put a meaningful dent in any big social ill -- say, hunger -- our best bet lies in the resolve and spirit of a free people sharing prosperity, not in an uninspired 8-to-5 bureaucrat.

That's not to ignore government's strengths, such as disaster response, interstate highways and national defense. It just doesn't do "Great Society" stuff very well. Left alone, government will do nothing more than quantify and cultivate more and more welfare recipients and teach them to use the system from generation to generation. A welfare state is what government calls success.

I'm sorry to articulate such gloom on the first day of the new year -- a day generally reserved for optimism. But that's the truth. The sooner we face it, the sooner we all -- rich and poor -- start celebrating higher levels of American greatness.

The recipe for the government-first crowd is a nasty brew of greed, laziness, a denial of history, a disbelief in the American can-do spirit, a pinch of socialistic unaccountability and a sprinkle of unthinking compassion.

Just say no to this perpetual welfare concoction and start putting hope where it really might do some good -- in the strength of motivated, free people and the generosity of the private sector.

I can almost hear the howls from the America-sucks "Occupy" crowd. But I challenge these modern liberals to point out a government program that fixed any big social ill.

Take food stamps, for example. This granddaddy of government programs pretends to alleviate hunger.

After 60-some years of operation, food stamp usage is out of hand. Thirty-six months ago, 33 million Americans used food stamps. Today, 44 million use them. One of seven persons.

Where in those figures can anyone other than a bureaucrat support the idea that this program actually worked?

Let's also put a quick death to the idea that we need to force stingy Americans, via taxes, to fund poverty-eradication programs. Americans are not stingy. In fact, the Britain-based Charities Aid Foundation finds America the most charitable nation in the world.

If government stopped shaking us down for more tax money to not fix the problem, Americans could and would give more to private charities, which would then stand a far better chance of reducing the problem.

Consider the fact that Rotary -- not government -- virtually eradicated polio from the planet. This was done by a bunch of middle-class business lunch people who lived up to the club's motto of "Service Over Self." Anybody seen such a sign over any welfare office lately?

Or, hear it from Adam Meyerson of the Philanthropy Roundtable. He minces no words -- Americans are generous because of the spirit free societies nurture.

"As Tocqueville observed back in the 1830s, unlike in Europe," he says, "in America people don't wait for the government or local noblemen to solve problems. We step up and solve them ourselves. ... Philanthropy and charity have always been part of American business culture -- Ben Franklin, who started the first volunteer fire department, to Andrew Carnegie, who brought public libraries to communities all across the country, to Bill Gates, who's trying to eliminate malaria."

Here's a worthy resolution for 2012: May we invest less in mindless government "solutions" and rely more on the goodness and resolve of the American can-do spirit.

That would indeed make for a Happy New Year.

Sherman Frederick, former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, writes a column for Stephens Media. Read his blog at www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm.