Someone else might have made this point as well. That establishing that the government should be in charge of things like providing medical coverage, education, and other things, is a very important distinction, so arguing that if he feels like he should give his money away via taxes, he should give it to charity shows a fundamental lack of understanding. Charities do not have the capabilities that a sovereign government does. And their entire point is that's how it should be. This is stuff that the government was specifically created for, and is uniquely positioned to deal with. And if its enshrined as part of government capacity, it would have the inelastic income that many of these things require in order to be viable. Furthermore, for the complaints about squandering or misusing funds, doing that with federal government money would be especially serious and should have near constant oversight (which charities often will not have to the same degree).