What is the objective of the Samaritan Award and Guide?
The last forty years of federal welfare programs have taught us that, in general, such programs are not only ineffective in helping vulnerable populations, but often make social problems worse. Despite multi-trillion dollar expenditures in these programs since the 1960s, poverty rates are largely unchanged. Worse, a variety of social pathologies, from an explosion of single family homes to intergenerational poverty and domestic violence can be linked to the very programs designed to solve such problems. The problem is not a lack of good intentions. The problem is that large, impersonal, government bureaucracies with little accountability are the wrong instruments to meet the needs of our most vulnerable fellow citizens. All things being equal, the charities closest to the problem are most likely to succeed in solving the problem. Unfortunately, the reach of federal programs is now so extensive that even many private charities are, in effect, part of the system itself. The objective of
