Paying your taxes ≠ giving to "charity"

The two biggest complaints I hear about conducting charity on a voluntary basis as opposed to via the tax code (a.k.a. at the end of the barrel of a gun) is that 1) it is an unreliable source of funding and 2) that if government doesn't do it, nobody will do it.

The federal government collects roughly $1 trillion annually in revenue from the income tax. Unfortunately it also spends about $1 Trillion annually on occupying and bombing other countries and in general failing miserably at policing the globe. Private charitable donations by Americans, on the other hand, total roughly $300 Billion annually and go largely to peaceful things like helping the poor. They also volunteer about 8 million hours of their time which can be valued at roughly $158 Billion. That's even in the midst of a "Great Recession" like 2010.

So this begs the question...where do you want your money to go?