I Agree With Obama On Something! Holy Cow!

While on my lunch break at work I was watching the news and Obama came on. Again. I kind of rolled my eyes and prepared to lose my appetite, but I was surprisingly pleased with what he said about non-profit organizations.

He talked about the great ideas that so many non-profit organizations have which help people in a wide variety of ways. He also said that the government can't do everything (gasp) and that these one size fits all government programs sometimes end up fitting no one. (gasp again).

What President Obama suggested is that our government work to identify the best ideas of these non-profit organizations and add government funding to that of the private sector in order to help these organizations grow and expand into other areas. I like this idea because it leaves the control of the organization in the hands of those with the great ideas. Especially since the vast majority of these organizations are about giving a hand up to people instead of a hand out. They invest time and money in individuals to get them to a place where assistance is no longer needed and the individual can fly on their own. And some of them will soar.

Two of the organizations that were mentioned caught my attention, but I remember neither of their names. One organization helps small business owners learn how to run their businesses better so that they can grow and expand. How wonderful is that. A support network for small business owners so that they can succeed and actually add jobs to the economy instead of floundering and often failing only because they have a great idea but not enough business knowledge. The other organization assisted inner-city kids become college ready. This is not by putting pressure on colleges to accept students they normally wouldn't, but instead by getting the kids, whose education is often sub-par, meet the criteria of the colleges. They have a college acceptance rate of 99% for the students they help. Now that is really making a difference.

I am all for investing in our fellow Americans. Helping them become self-sufficient so they can improve their lives to whatever level they see fit. But this is an investment. Most of the time, the money spent on helping these people will be paid back in the taxes they pay once they are prepared to go forth and succeed.

There are so many wonderful non-profits out there and helping THEM expand so they can help more is a spending of our tax dollars that I can really get behind.