Government or Volunteers or Both

When disaster strikes would you rather have the government or volunteers come to your rescue? Read Robert Freer’s article for some insight, because there is a role for both.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

Our meteorologists confirm that we have just concluded the worst hurricane season since we began keeping records of such things back in 1865. Katrina alone is the most devastating natural disaster in our history. Together with Hurricane Rita their winds and water have devastated an area stretching from New Orleans east to the Alabama border. It may come back better, but it will never be the same, and its redevelopment will evolve over years not months.

Few events in the last few years have so engaged the hearts of the American public. Our attention during the storm centered on the pain and destruction as well as the role of government and its responsibility both for relief and rescue of those in the hurricane’s eye. Thanks to ubiquitous media, it was focused as well on affixing blame for the government’s inability to effectively protect the people of this area from the devastating affects of nature’s wrath. Since our founding, our country has existed under a federal system in which the states have sovereign authority for the care of its citizens, and the federal government is expected to show proper deference to the states for the first line responsibility for their citizen’s welfare. Admittedly, this arrangement has largely deteriorated through federal mandates and regulatory requirements tied to federal largesse on which many states have become dependent; nevertheless, the forms remain.

For the most part it works. There is little doubt, however, that for Louisiana and the needs of its citizens, the system failed horribly, and this bad example may cause changes in the relationship between the states generally and the federal government. Federal power may be enhanced, and state prerogatives eroded. If so, social scientists will view this incident as another step in the emasculation of the states and their transformation into vassals of a federal master. Without in any way minimizing the devastation of both Katrina and Rita, such a transformation is an ill wind that blows no good. I submit there is another way to look at the events that provides a more promising model for our nation, one that looks at effective care of our citizens and allows our governmental structures to conform to the way we really act in an emergency.

Let me first say that Katrina confirmed the goodness of the vast majority of our people. Sure there are crooks and knaves out there aplenty, but the tsunami of goodness that flows from the hearts of the American people dwarfs them. We are a great land, a great people who have much to celebrate! As this year comes to a close with our traditional season of thanksgiving and festivity, foremost we need to celebrate ourselves! The same generosity that has been there for lands far away now pours from the American soul in sustained support for those who bear the brunt of this disaster here at home. Because our nature is humane, we find that indeed we are our brother’s keeper. The Center on Philanthropy at The University of Indiana began tracking non governmental charitable support soon after the hurricane struck. By November 15, they tracked more than 2.6 Billion dollars in non governmental charitable giving. While an impressive demonstration of charity, it doesn’t hold a candle to the unmeasured and perhaps immeasurable charity of the thousands of volunteers giving millions of hours both on site across the gulf coast and back in homes across our land. Almost too many of us to count voluntarily implemented clothing and food drives, assembled volunteers to come at their own expense to the region to help carry the burden for charitable aid groups who need to supplement and replace those generous citizens who gave until they were ready to drop from exhaustion. Many have given that last measure of help and must return to lives strained by their efforts.

So far volunteers still come in record numbers. Here in the Low Country, I hear constantly about church groups and others planning trips to take their donations directly to the people in need. We are far from unique in this. Help in our area also continues to see to the needs of those for whom we have found shelter in temporary homes throughout our region including, as time passes, finding them new jobs, medical care, furniture, and whatever else is necessary to salvage the thread of lives destroyed by the wind and rain. This help is for the most part provided on the basis of person to person volunteer help unburdened and undirected by governmental authority. And that is the point. In a number of instances various state and federal agencies have only gotten in the way by requiring forms in triplicate and subjecting volunteers to various tests of appropriateness that only frustrate the efforts’ effectiveness.

Surely there is an appropriate role for federal and state authority, but often it best serves by getting out of the way and letting goodness just flow. While I will admit to not having all the answers, I am encouraged that these daily demonstrations of goodwill can fashion a process, which speeds the assistance and shrinks the government’s part of the process back to the traditional service of replacing infrastructure and restoring public safety. Providing a friendlier interface between government responsibility and volunteer assistance could greatly increase the effective delivery of help and reduce the cost of politically straitjacketed governmental assistance. The sheer administrative cost of compliance with the governmental interference is more than we can afford in dollars or in human suffering. Perhaps we need less government rather than more. Although it is counterintuitive, we may find that limiting federal spending without a super majority in Congress to 15% of Gross Domestic Product will grant more resources to the states and allow people’s pockets to freely provide the charity that we see demonstrated everyday.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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