To add to that: There are also "compounding effects" from investments made by tax money, just as for any other investments, the difference is that the compounding gains are collectively owned and not controlled by an individual.
> A government agency spending $300 million in taxpayer dollars to produce sterilized flies sounds like a dream scenario for a DOGE team looking to cut waste, fraud, and abuse.
> Grocery shoppers could get hit with higher prices if the screwworm cases turn into a full-blown outbreak. That could cost $3 billion across the Southwest, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Good tax, or bad tax?
Returning to your question, though: Yes, I assert the cost of troubleshooting a "bad tax" may exceed the benefits of having addressed it.
You can still collect taxes without taxing people who have already been taxed in the form of needing to exchange a large fraction of their life for the wage.
I'm entirely onboard with reducing tax on low/mid income folks currently "exchanging a large fraction of their life for the small wage" in favor of increased taxes on the billionaire class, yes.
We have the current inefficient, corrupt, and incompetent government in the US because the anti-tax wealthy class threw an all-out tantrum over even the idea of paying a tiny bit more tax.
I live in Germany and I pay almost 50% of my income in income tax and social tax. There is always "just that tiny bit more tax" that will magically fix the system (it won't).
Turns out paying more money to an already corrupt government doesn't turn it less corrupt. Go figure, hm?
> I live in Germany and I pay almost 50% of my income in income tax and social tax.
I live in the US and pay less raw tax than that, for sure.
But I reported $49k in medical expenses (premiums, deductible, copays, stuff they won't cover) last year on my taxes, and I've got two kids going to college in a year, which may cost $10-40k/year for each.
My trade-off is not seeing a specialist for 6 months and more while paying 10k healthcare premiums a year for state mandated healthcare. Dermatologists in my city only take privately insured patients or self-paying patients. So I pay 300 Eur a visit anyway. On a third of a US software engineer's salary. I don't qualify for private insurance so im OOL.
I’m in the US. We have six month waits for specialists too. And we pay almost twice what y’all pay per capita. Inclusive of both private and public spend.
You forget that the college expense is temporary while the taxes are forever. And Germany still makes you get private insurance for medical. A single year of taxes in Germany based on my current American income would pay for all of that you just said. So then my question for you is. What were you doing with your money in those other years? I hope it was saving it. Because otherwise I'm gonna eye roll hard at you wanting to increase taxes on everyone just to get a small cut in how much you pay during one fiscal year. Seems silly.
We have an inefficient, corrupt and incompetent government in the US because we voted for it. And we keep voting for it. That's our revealed preference. We obviously like inefficient, corrupt, incompetent governments.
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