If the government was efficient or effective at spending, then it’s just a question of, “well, do we agree spending on X benefits our community or society?”
Where I live, the infrastructure is in bad shape. Public schools are an embarrassment. Teachers are paid nothing (hence, we have unqualified teachers because skilled ones go into other fields). Homelessness is a separate industrial complex where we pump billions each year, but there are no results.
The debate on taxes always turns into the rich or whoever “paying their fair share”. But there’s another topic of greed, blatant corruption, and incompetence in the government apparatus that we have. If I give another penny from my dollar, I don’t see how my community benefits. There’s no accountability. Why should I pay my community gets nothing in return? In fact, it’s not that my community pays and another community wins. It’s that the money seems to go down a black hole of bureaucratic corruption and greed.
