Olasky's book, which encyclopedically and exhaustingly compiles anecdote after anecdote about American treatment of the deserving and undeserving poor, is a sermon for the converted. Useful and thought-provoking on a superficial level, the book relates stories of useful experiments such as missions where supplicants were asked to chop wood for a few hours before being entitled to receive food. Olasky calls for a renewed volunteerism to replace the role of government, as does Gingrich as one of his eight points. However, human nature being what it is, it is hard to countenance that anyone really committed to helping the poor would want to leave the job entirely to private initiative. Suppose I were to argue as follows.
Big government is inefficient.
It cannot do anything well. Government involvement in defense leads to contracts of unseemly cost, where the government complacently buys thousand dollar flashlights from fatcat contractors who deliver inferior products that won't fly or fire properly. Meanwhile, even in the absence of a real enemy, the defense budget balloons from year to year, creating a culture of dependency among the millions of ineffectual workers supported by the defense economy who are creating no value while showing up for their make-work jobs. If I made such a proposal, you would seriously doubt how committed I was to the defense of this country. They treat the problems of the poor purely as a psychological issue and not as an empirical one.