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Comment by erikpukinskis | Hacker News Reader

Do you ever receive packages from UPS? Do buy food from a grocery store?

How do you think those things get paid for? You really think the $2 per pound you pay for tomatoes includes the true cost of growing a tomato and getting it into your car? If so, I've got a bridge you might be interested in...

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Some people are not grateful for the roads that government build, like critics of suburban development, enemies of car culture, etc.

Please stop promoting this nonsense that our current level of taxation is needed because of infrastructure needs. Transportation accounts for a measly 4% of the federal budget. Most of our tax dollars go towards military and paying for the old people in society, both of which are politically-charged budget items that politicians refuse to address.

http://www.investorguide.com/taxtrackr/

Lowering taxes does not stop the military. Spending is one side, taxing is the other. Bills that run up must be paid, or war fought over them. The solution to overspending is to find a way to stop the spending.

Regarding old people, as a group they worked pretty hard to build the modern world and its conveniences and efficiencies that we enjoy, so I don't mind paying them dividends.

Do you use the Internet? GPS? Do you drive on roads? Do you buy goods from companies that utilize those roads and infrastructure? Do you benefit from protection by police and fire departments? Do you live in a building up to a certain safety code? Do you drink water? Do you deposit money in FDIC insured banks? Do you work for or own a company that benefits from any of these things?

That's only a counter argument if it takes 100% (or heck...even the majority) of taxes to pay for those things.

If 96% of our taxes are being spent on things you hate, and have no practical purpose for you.... isn't it right to dislike taxes in general, and question the government as bloated and inefficient?

Do you hate what your mom's sewing machine because she buys you ugly clothes.

If you hate spending, fight the spending. Federal government has only the weakest correlation between tax levels and spend levels.

Of course I've received a package from the bankrupt and insolvent USPS and yes I also buy food from grocery stores that receive food over roads badly in need of repair.

I didn't say that the government does not do or provide ANY good things. However that does not mean that paying taxes to a government that IS inefficient and bloated can or should be called the "common good". The same government spent over a trillion dollars on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are those wars part of the common good? The same government spends half a trillion on welfare of various sorts. Is that welfare part of the common good? The same government got us almost 15 trillion dollars in debt. Is that debt part of the common good?

Different people may say yes to one, two, or all of the three things above. I, however, would say no to all of them. To me, paying taxes to the government is most definitely NOT the common good.

He said UPS.

You mean the fuel taxes that everyone pays, which is routinely raided for things like LRT railways virtually no-one uses, and giveaways to Warren Buffett's freight railroad company?

Here in PA they took $40 million from the fuel tax fund and gave it to the railway companies to modify all the underpasses, so they could stack containers 2-high all the way without the top one getting stuck. And that is just one state, and one example.

If anything, fuel taxes and road maintenance are one thing the govt (sort of) gets right, in that it is a tax on usage of something and automatically scales up or down depending on how much you use the resource. If only they would stop stealing from the funds for non-highway purposes...

Does making rail more efficient keep trucks off the road and not damaging highways?

Why should people paying fuel taxes who do not own railroads, subsidize track repairs for private companies?

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