Universal Charity Vouchers. A Conservative Solution?

Robert VerBruggen of NRO believes that the only difference between allowing taxpayers to direct their own funds according to their individual preferences and having the government pool all tax dollars and distribute them according its collective preference is political, not principled. A mere technicality rather than a fundamental distinction.


Moreover, VerBruggen contends that it is dishonest to use tax credits instead of direct government spending.


If that’s true, why don’t we voucherize charitable giving?


The feds should eliminate the charitable tax deduction and send out the average (tax‐​forgiven) amount donated per adult to every citizen in the country to donate as they wish! Would this be more honest? Is there no fundamental difference between these two approaches?


Sure, some people would complain about how their tax dollars were being redistributed to, say, support abortion clinics or the Catholic Church or PETA. They would carp about how they, as taxpayers who earned that money in the first place, should be the ones to direct their money to the charity of their choice. They would complain that pooling the money and doling it out to people who didn’t earn it to use at their own discretion, according to some criteria determined by the government, is unfair and wrong. Are these just technicalities?


Is direct government spending on universal charity vouchers really no different than giving individual taxpayers the freedom to donate to the charities of their choosing?


Would universal charity vouchers be preferable to the individual tax deductions for charitable donations that we have today, from the standpoint of minimizing compulsion and social tension? To claim that school vouchers are equal to or better than tax credits on these grounds is to claim that universal government charity vouchers would be better than the system we have today.


“By letting citizens do the government’s job of allocating tax money to the preferred area,” VerBruggen insists, “politicians can avoid controversy, claiming they’re merely enabling ‘donations.’” He therefore concedes, “so maybe there’s something to Coulson’s argument about avoiding social conflict, if only because people mistakenly think there’s a meaningful difference between the two funding mechanisms.” While VerBruggen supports direct government vouchers, using “[tax expenditures] is a dishonest way to get them.”


VerBruggen seems pre‐​committed to charity vouchers. It’s the only honest thing to do. Anyone else on board with that?