There is a difference between someone taking money from your paycheck and someone showing up at your door with a casserole.
Both may involve helping people. Only one smells like noodles and love.
The Gazette editorial board pointed this week to a Common Sense Institute report on charitable giving in Colorado. The numbers are worth noticing. According to the report cited by The Gazette, Coloradans gave an estimated $6.1 billion to charity in 2025, which is equal to about 61% of the state’s individual income tax revenue for fiscal year 2024-25. The same report said replacing that private giving would require raising Colorado’s flat income tax rate from 4.40% to 7.09%.
That is not pocket change.
That is Colorado showing up.
And in a time when state government often seems to believe every social problem needs another tax increase, another program, another office, another director, another acronym, and probably a steering committee with muffins, it is worth remembering a simple kitchen-table truth.
Government can collect money.
It cannot manufacture charity.
Now, let’s be fair. Some public services matter. Roads matter. Public safety matters. Courts matter. Schools matter. There are things government must do because civilized life requires order, structure, and shared responsibility.
But taxation and charity are not the same thing.
Taxation is compulsory. Charity is personal.
Taxation can fund programs. Charity builds community.
Taxation starts with authority. Charity starts with love, duty, faith, compassion, gratitude, and sometimes a casserole dish sliding around in the back seat on the way to a family having the worst week of their lives.
That difference matters.
A distant agency may be able to process an application. A local church, nonprofit, food bank, shelter, mentoring program, coach, neighbor, or business owner may know the person’s name, story, kids, habits, wounds, and hopes.
In normal-person English: the closer help gets to the person in need, the more human it tends to become.
That does not mean every charity is perfect or every government program is useless. Life is not that tidy, and neither is public policy. But it does mean we should be careful before assuming the best way to help people is always to move more money farther away from the people who earned it and into systems that can start sounding like compassion but acting like paperwork.
Colorado’s giving culture is a quiet hero.
It is the volunteer who stocks shelves at the food pantry. The small-business owner who sponsors the youth team. The church that pays a light bill. The neighbor who notices the widow’s driveway. The nonprofit worker who knows exactly which family needs help before pride lets them ask.
No press conference. No ribbon cutting. No dramatic music.
Just people seeing a need and stepping toward it.
That kind of generosity is not a loophole in the system. It is part of the foundation of a free and decent society.
So yes, be skeptical when politicians imply that every hard thing requires a new tax line on the receipt. You are not selfish for believing local generosity can often work better than distant administration.
But don’t stop at complaining about taxes.
Give. Volunteer. Support the food bank. Help the shelter. Back the mentoring program. Serve at church. Write the check. Make the call. Notice the neighbor.
Colorado still gives.
Colorado still shows up.
And if we want that to keep being true, we had better defend the space where generosity can breathe.
Because there really is no substitute for charity.
Source: The Gazette
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