[gisborne]

This is true, but it’s not the only truth that matters.

Public goods can be _very_ efficient, even if inefficient in their delivery. I would have trouble believing that an educated citizenry is not a good thing, for example.

So although taxes are evil, they can be outweighed by a _much_ greater good.

But, also, wasted public spending is a great tragedy.

From this, I arrive at a left-Libertarian point of view: we should limit what the government does as well as we can to those things that are clearly better than the evil of the taxes involved, while it is still I think true that social welfare is compatible with this view.