Taxes

Today I submitted my taxes. Yippee! Yeah, it's no fun having to write a check to the guv'ment, but after the first shock of the amount, I sat back and ticked off all the services our government offers: police, schools, roads, courts, military, research, social safety nets... the list goes on.

It makes me think of the question: Why are people so against taxes? Is it because people don't like where some of the money goes? Does it just seem like too much money? Why does it seem like too much? Are people not getting enough bang for their buck? Do they think the government is inefficient? Isn't the private sector inefficient too?

Often I think anti-taxation takes on a cult of personality. It's almost like a bandwagon effect and it has become trendy to be anti-tax. Sure, I think there are many government programs that could be cut, improved, or streamlined. Of course, I wish there are things our government didn't spend money on or, conversely, spent more money on. However, it doesn't strike me as helpful for people to be so stridently anti-tax when all it seems to achieve is the development of cynical views of the government. I've spent enough times in regions of the world where the government doesn't provide enough services and huge swathes of the populace does not have access to basic, necessary services to know that a society that fails to provide support services is extremely depressing.

Reminds me of a story I heard during a lecture from one of the smartest people I've ever been around, Dr. Crawford, a former professor at Elon. He talked about how politicians during the Cold War promised a massive tax cut when the Cold War came to an end because military spending would immediately go down as soon as the arms buildup against the Soviet Union was over. Of course, after the Cold War ended that tax reduction never came. So, perhaps, it is experiences such as this that make people anti-tax.

Thoughts?