U.S. Should Not Help Haiti Earthquake Victims

The recent earthquake in Haiti is a tragic situation that has touched America's heart. However, America must be careful to avoid losing its head and making a bad situation even worse.

The National Alliance for Liberty and Freedom, a coalition of national libertarian, tea party, objectivist, and Ayn Rand groups hereby demands that no public funds should be spent on any disaster relief.

Certainly, if private citizens want to donate money that is an individual decision that they will freely make, and we cannot - nor would we seek to - prevent those citizens from deciding where to spend their money.

However, public funds are entirely different and should not be spent in this matter.

The main reason is simple: those funds are not the U.S. government's to begin with. Any money that the U.S. government would give would have been stolen - under threat of force - from U.S. citizens.

Further, any donations to Haiti will only serve as a "moral hazard", in effect underwriting their bad choices. Haiti had some of the highest tax rates in the Western Hemisphere, hampering the natural innovation of its citizens and making it difficult for corporations - today's engine of prosperity - to operate in that country. Their rules and regulations were among the most onerous as well, preventing true innovation to occur. Without such onerous rules and high taxation, Haiti could have been a thriving commercial center able to better withstand the earthquake and its aftermath.

By giving money, we will prevent Haitian citizens from rising up in their own Tea Party Revolution and taking their country back from the Marxists.

Once again, if private citizens want to donate their own money, that is their choice. However, the U.S. government should not give one dime: it isn't their money to give and it will only reward failed choices.