While there are some charities that do good, I believe most are complete scams. With the majority of their funding going towards administrative expenses and fundraising and very little being spent on the charity part. If you want to feel good donating to a charity, don't ask the government to help subsidize it.
Originally Posted by KCJoe
The majority of charitable groups have a much lower overhead than the government. On average,
seventy percent of dollars donated to charities helping the poor, actually goes to help the poor. On average
thirty percent of tax dollars, allocated by the government, for social welfare programs actually helps the recipient. We spend sixty thousand dollars per year, per household, in welfare programs for poor families. The welfare recipient only gets eighteen thousand dollars in benefits per household.
Losing the tax exemption for charitable contributions would be a big mistake. Warren Buffett says he doesn't pay enough taxes and supports higher taxes on the rich, while at the same time, he give BILLIONS to private charities like the Gates Foundation. He does this because he knows that the Gates Foundation will do far more good with the money than the government.
http://mises.org/journals/jls/21_2/21_2_1.pdf