Michael Tanner

Michael Tanner is the director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy research foundation in Washington, D.C. In the following viewpoint, Tanner asserts that private charities, rather than government welfare programs, are best suited to help the poor. He contends that private charities are a superior solution because they can offer individualized help and promote religious values. In contrast, Tanner argues, government programs are bogged down in faceless bureaucracy. Charity should be a voluntary and ennobling act, rather than an obligation forced upon a nation's citizens, he maintains. Tanner is the author of the book The End of Welfare: Fighting Poverty in the Civil Society, from which this viewpoint is excerpted.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What percentage of American adults make charitable contributions each...