Comments on: Extensive publicity given to “We are One” Project

By: adventurebusa

adventurebusa — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:50:46 +0000

even before the monk goes to jail, they exhort you to donate your hard earned money to help the poor. well, they can use the taxes that i pay to help the poor.

they can also use the 50 billion GSIC lost and the other 50 billion temasek lost to help the poor.

By: angry_one

angry_one — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:44:19 +0000

I urge everyone reading here not to donate to such mainstream charities, which are simply PR campaigns to gorify the PAP and most of your money will be funnelled to pay bonuses for ‘charity execs’.

Donate directly to the people you meet or to small charities you’re familiar with.

I have never heard of any other govt urging citizens to donate to the poor. A real govt will help its downtrodden using state funds and established welfare schemes, without resorting to sob stories and media whoring.

By: Janet

Janet — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:49:12 +0000

Has it ever occurred to anyone’s mind that the WE ARE ONE Project could be aimed at raising funds for the FT’s. All the money raised for this project could go into the $10 million dollars on a Community Integration Fund to make the new migrants feel welcome instead of helping the struggling Singaporeans.

No one will ever know where these monies are going to….. Something for everyone to think about??

By: jiangbao

jiangbao — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:31:14 +0000

I haven really donated since the NKF saga. I only donate foodstuffs to the BB charity gift boxes by buying the gifts directly rather than giving cash. I ask them what they need too rather than buying stuff that they do not need.

I do agree that we should give directly to the poor but it is hard when you have no idea where to find them or the extent of help they need.

By: rc

rc — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:59:11 +0000

i suppose the case for charities is that they provide some amount of economies of scale over direct acts of charity by individuals. but that is only if these charities are indeed doing what they are supposed to.

By: anon

anon — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:35:21 +0000

While we are on the subject of charities, is there any way of checking whether the PM has indeed donated, and continues to donate, his increase in salary to a charity, and which one?

By: anon

anon — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:29:47 +0000

rc, ‘tax’ has got it right.

Donations that forcibly deduct from everyone’s paycheck.. well firstly I would not call those ‘donations’. I call those ‘taxes’. Donation means the person voluntarily contributes. So, no, I am not against social assistance. I simply do not like being obligated to donate, when there are already a multitude of taxes. I have nothing against donating, just don’t make it compulsory.

Secondly, since Community Chest has a stable source of not-insignifcant income, I also do not see why it has to be a beneficiary in this case. Surely, there are other charities that need the money more.

Of course you can say that all charities perform a common good (which is debatable), but given the lack of transparency about our charities, especially government ones, I remain both skeptical and cynical.

By the way, just out of curiosity, if you advocate helping the people directly, why do we need a middleman called ‘We Are One’?

By: tax

tax — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:34:11 +0000

“if you are unhappy with the donations that they forcibly deduct from everyone’s paycheck, then you must really be against government social assistance of any form. because any social assistance by the government will have to be funded by taxpayers money, i.e. that sum which is deducted from your income.”

But they are already having taxpayers money in the form of gst, property tax, stamp duty, license fees, road tax, erp, personal tax and corporate tax, import duty for certain goods and mind you profit making machineries in the form of GLCs or related companies like transportation (mrt, lrt, taxis, buses, planes), utilities, telcos, commercial buildings & public housing, insurance, banking, shipping, port, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc ………. you name it boy.

Against social assistance, never !! Against overtaxing, definitely !!

By: ceo

ceo — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:19:49 +0000

“Janetnt on Sat, 28th Nov 2009 9:44 pm
Whats the point of this article”

If you can pay S$20m to one-man CEO and S$10m for some integration project, surely you can do away with the beating of drum & gongs just so loudly in order to raise S$1m to help the needy.

By: rc

rc — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:32:38 +0000

oh. but i still stand by my opinion that as far as possible, we should keep tax funded social assistance to a mininum. if we can, i would also like to have ministers who draw less salary. in short, i welcome anything that can reduce the amount of taxes that i pay.