There seems to be a trend in the United States for nonprofit organizations (here called 501(c) 3's), increasingly to be taxpayer- funded- via Federal, State and local governments, or so at least it seems to me. 

A recently well-publicized example is the ACORN organization, which once it became entangled in scandal, we learned was largely being funded by our tax dollars. 

And recently I had occasion to read a smattering of financial statements from various U.S. nonprofits, and I was surprised to see how many are now being primarily funded by governmental grants,  blurring the erstwhile distinction between governmental and charitable activity. 

One is reminded to of Bill Clinton's so-called "Volunteer Corps", where government-funded employees were euphemistically dubbed "volunteers", depriving that word of its traditional connotation as referring to an unpaid worker.

 "We have come to accept that the first call on our money is taxation"

If people were to see the cost of services they use and would otherwise have to pay, the majority might well donate their taxes more happily!

"If people were to see the cost of services they use and would otherwise have to pay, the majority might well donate their taxes more happily!"  

I can't begin to imagine the sort of confusion which begat that statement.  ...Would otherwise have to pay?!  Who pays the cost, then?  That man behind the tree?  Are services somehow made less expensive because they are funded involuntarily via taxation and administered by an army of bureacrats? 

"There seems to be a trend in the United States for nonprofit organizations (here called 501(c) 3's), increasingly to be taxpayer- funded- via Federal, State and local governments, or so at least it seems to me. "

Oh, we've had that sort of thing going on over here for some time: a couple of years ago the Charities Commision published a survey showing that over half of all charities with incomes over half a million pounds per annum are engaged in delivering public services --- with a third of these getting very significant portions of their income from government (if memory serves).  For some of the very big charities, the figures were even worse --- I believe Oxfam receives something like a third of its income from the British government, and Barnardos something like three quarters.  And who wants our provably corrupt government using tax revenue to fund (and thus influence) charities which still masquerade as being private? 

Doomed. 

Paul, if only we had an edit function. I realised my poor wording the second I had posted.

What I had intended to say was this: since everybody complains about their taxes, should everybody (not just your typical Spectator reader) receive an invoice for those services as they used them, it might help remind people that they live in a material word where services and objects like traffic lights cost a lot of money, they also don't appear "behind the tree".

Are services somehow made less expensive because they are funded involuntarily via taxation and administered by an army of bureacrats? 

Us disgusting collectivised Brits seem to pay half as much as the Americans. I'm not sure how you explain that (other than all those yachts in Miami and the fact we're all dying of cancer). I guess private sector also have costs too, like marketing, administration, bureaucracy, wages, materials, equipment, profit, regulation?

Did it again - we spend on average half as much on healthcare per person. 

Mr. Dalrymple quotes of the political recoment at the time: "He permitted cheap credit, thus encouraging the asset inflation..."

I am struck by this comment - in America, interest rates and therefore the availability of credit are controlled by the Federal Reserve, an organization very specifically beyond the controll of political candidates. In America, it would be at least marginally unfair to accuse any politician to an elected office of "allowing" (or disallowing) access to credit.

Are things different in England? Do you not have an independant central bank? What exactly is meant by an elected official "allowing cheap credit?"