&gt; Is the government &quot;doing good?&quot; There is some good, but there is a case that non-profits such as the Red Cross, churches, food banks, are more accountable and do more good.<p>I&#x27;d say they&#x27;re less accountable. There&#x27;s no democratic oversight, FOIA doesn&#x27;t apply to them, journalists have less incentive to go digging for dirt. They have to keep the donations coming, but that&#x27;s as much a question of PR as of how much good they&#x27;re actually doing.<p>I&#x27;ve no doubt there are effective NGOs and wasteful parts of government, but I suspect a large proportion of NGOs (not those on your list perhaps, but the money-weighted average) are less effective.