PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

To hear Democrats running for president tell it, the private sector is all bad.

Corporations do nothing that benefits the economy. Their leaders don’t engage in private philanthropy. All they want is personal gain.

That’s why the likes of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren want to trash American capitalism and install socialism. They want to give government an ever-increasing role in life, so bureaucrats will tell us what health insurance to have, instruct us in how to be educated, tell everyone how to build “green buildings,” etc.

You get the picture.

The private sector is evil.

We see this in Washington, D.C. as the 2020 presidential election approaches, but we also see it in Oregon.

In fact, one aspirant for the Secretary of State’s office is calling corporate political contributions evil, even as that person solicits ever-growing contributions from public employee unions.

In this way, this candidate tends to mimic the Oregonian newspaper, which showed up a couple months ago with a series of major stories on the “evils of corporate political contributions.” Nary a mention of public employee union contributions.

Plus, the story contended that corporate contributions prompted Democrats to oppose various new environmental regulatory laws. You would thought Democrats were in the pocket of corporations, which should have irritated those Democrats.

So, against this backdrop, I read with interest a piece in the Wall Street Journal that appeared under this headline:

The War on Philanthropy

Private giving achieves what government can’t—which is why authoritarians hate it.

It was by Karl Zinsmeister, the author of the Almanac of American Philanthropy and editor in chief of Philanthropy Magazine.

He wrote this:

“America has just completed a banner year for private giving. The 10 largest donations in 2019 amounted to $6.2 billion, up 8 per cent from 2018. These went to a wide array of causes, and came from men and women of the right and the left. When the total of all U.S. philanthropy becomes available this summer, it will show that Americans voluntarily gave away around $430 billion in 2019.”

Further, Zinsmeister made a key point, with which I agree:

“Private giving builds institutions of civil society that provide valuable services, alleviating many pressing public problems. The New York Public Library, for example, has operated as a charity since its founding 125 years ago, and Central Park is run by a donor-funded conservancy that rescued it from decay in 1980. Quietly effective philanthropies get little visibility, though, and scant credit from journalists, academics and politicians.

“Instead, progressive editorialists and political candidates openly call for deep cuts in the charitable deduction, an end to tax protections for churches and other charities, the taxing down of personal fortunes, and new regimes in which government becomes the sole ministrant of societal needs. Givers like the Kochs and Waltons are treated as punching bags for ideological reasons, but even liberals such as Bill Gates, Eli Broad and Robert Smith are pilloried for practicing philanthropy.”

Zinsmeister says today’s critics of private giving are most misleading in their suggestion that it is primarily a game played by “the billionaire boys’ club.” That’s not even close to accurate, he says.

The lion’s share of America’s vast philanthropy comes from ordinary citizens, 100 million of whom make charitable gifts annually, with the average household donating around $3,000. In addition, 77 million citizens volunteer time and labor. This broad generosity powers some 1.5 million independent non-profits across the country, operating in every imaginable part of the economy, pursuing a panoply of approaches to national improvement.

Zinsmeistser adds: “Rather than being an instrument of plutocracy, America’s highly decentralized philanthropy is one of its most pluralistic and democratic elements. Philanthropy disperses authority, gives individuals direct opportunities to change their communities, and lets nonmainstream alternatives have their day in the sun.

“Charitable problem-solving also has many practical advantages. What works to alleviate homelessness or loneliness in old age may be different in Nebraska than in New York. With government programs it is almost impossible, even illegal, to pursue different strategies in different places. In philanthropy that’s easy—local variegation is one of the field’s inherent strengths. Studies show that philanthropic efforts are more effective than government in the amount of social repair accomplished per dollar.”

From a local, Salem-area perspective, this emphasis on philanthropy calls to the mind the example of the Salem Free Clinic, an effort by citizens and an incredible array of local churches – about 70 of them – to offer free health care (including general health and dental) to anyone who walks in off the street.

And, to the credit of local health care enterprises in the Salem area, including the major Salem Health System, those who run the systems have welcomed the Free Clinic, which, they say, provides an array of critical services in the region.

This is an example of what can happen in America when independent problem-solvers pounce on issues before they even rise to national notice.

“Privately funded civil society attends to a vast range of problems and threats,” Zinsmeister concludes. “This is a distinguishing strength of the U.S. It will be a tragedy if Americans allow our rich tradition of voluntary action to be smothered.”

I agree. And I wish that all of those who for public office, both here and around the country, would recognize the critical contributions of private philanthropy. It’s not only government that should set out to solve society’s problems.