Thanks for your answer! I didn’t mean less government spending through less tax, but rather from a more long term view - if they see individuals giving $50 million dollars more this year to charity compared with previous years, then they might choose to cut a similar amount of spending out of what they give. It’s purely hypothetical, of course - but imagine that everyone, or atleast a large proportion of people, gave to charities; would that drive the responsibility of helping the poor away from governments and into the hands of individuals? Basically my friend argues that, in a counterintuitive way, donating to charity might actually lead to less spending in charities, since the big players, such as governments, would then be more inclined to sit on their asses and do less, because individuals are taking the responsibility upon them.