[mercer]

Possibly. it's an interesting point.

I'd say no, though. My experience so far has been that my government has had no problems repealing (to various degrees) things like health care, education/student loans, or public ownership of various things. From my limited knowledge this has been similar in much of the Western world, at least.

[ajsnigrutin]

Better question is, after they took away/shrunk down the service, did they lower the taxes because of that cost saving?

In slovenia, we still have the "financial crisis" (2008) 22% VAT, which we "temporary" increased back then (from 20%).

[mercer]

To a degree I feel discussing this is a distraction of my basic point (we have become productive enough even in just a few decades to indulge in these experiments).

But honestly I think it's a great point. Our taxes did not go down, as far as I know. I'll check in one of the coming days, but I'd be shocked to find out it did...