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I personally don’t feel like my tax dollars are wasted, by and large. I also live in a large metro where I see my tax dollars being spent all over the place on

I personally don’t feel like my tax dollars are wasted, by and large. I also live in a large metro where I see my tax dollars being spent all over the place on worthwhile projects. Is every dollar spent as efficient as possible? No, but humans don’t operate at peak efficiently and never will.

mythrwy 2y ago
The projects you see in the metro would probably be mostly from local (county/ city) taxes as opposed to federal taxes no? (I do realize the feds sometimes contribute partially). Someone could probably make the same arguments for/against local taxes, but OP appeared to be referring to federal taxes as wasteful.
- apothegm 2y ago
  For some things yes, for some no. Fwiw, urban areas contribute FAR more in federal taxes than they get back in services. Those taxes then are used to support suburban and rural areas that receive much more in services than they pay in taxes. Either way, it’s very evident in many urban areas that taxes paid result in both economic and quality of life benefits.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    And then proponents of an antiquated system try to post memes about how 95% of the counties in the US are red and the electoral college makes sure "cities" don't have an outsized say in government. Perhaps there's a correlation. I do find it amusing how one of the reasons for the "original" (I know) settlers of the US was to get away from feudal landholders dictating politics and life, only to speed run a system where 33,000 sq mi in Wyoming that holds 90,000 people (3 people per square mile) have the same weight as 20 million people elsewhere. This system made sense 200 years ago. Probably. I don't understand why there's this belief that the Founding Fathers were infallible. They certainly weren't. Or this belief that they were all wizened old men. > It’s a simple question—perhaps so basic that it’s been overlooked: How old were the leaders of the American Revolution? > As it turns out, many Founding Fathers were younger than 40 years old in 1776, with several qualifying as Founding Teenagers or Twentysomethings. The Declaration of Independence was signed by: A sixteen year old, a 21 year old, 2 26 year olds, a 27 year old and a 29 year old. Source: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/how-old-were-the-founding-fathers-the-leaders-of-the-american-revolution-were-younger-than-we-imagine.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/how-old-were-the...
lotsoweiners 2y ago
My guess is that you haven’t worked for the government. I’ve spent 20 years working for multiple government agencies and the one commonality is that they are all very wasteful. I’ve spent countless hours working on pet projects for some middle manager or executive who leaves three months later and the project gets scrapped. I’ve seen plenty of passionate developers, both employees and contractors, come in and leave after a year once they’ve understood that no one cares and that they will always be wading through bureaucratic sludge in order to get anything done.
- rhelz 2y ago
  chuckle My guess is you haven't worked much in the private sector :-) You wouldn't even believe the private jets, yachts, huge bonuses, and other things they spend on which have nothing to do with making money. Why, Elon Musk just got Tesla to pay him $50 billion. For what, exactly?
  - tiltowait 2y ago
    The private sector doesn't have a mandate to serve the people and doesn't take money from me at the threat of imprisonment if I don't comply.
  - selfmodruntime 2y ago
    The private sector is entirely dependent on the willingness of people to pay them money. Private company revenue is not comparable to tax revenue in orders of magnitude.
    - rhelz 2y ago
      That doesn't mean it is more efficient. The administrative costs of Social Security, for example, are around 1/2%. That compares very favorably with most of the funds in my 401k.
      - selfmodruntime 2y ago
        Great. Now, do military spending. Or, you know, the money the Pentagon just loses every year.
yunohn 2y ago
The unspoken point being made here is about corruption, not efficiency per se. I want all my tax money going towards the public good, not just fractions/percentages of it.
selfmodruntime 2y ago
820 billion dollars (and counting) are spent on war by the US government every year.
rangestransform 2y ago
Even though I use publicly funded infrastructure every day (and I like it, too!), government spending inefficiency in the US is a problem, even compared to “western liberal democracies” as we would say in competitive debate https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html#:~:text=The%20recently%20completed%20Second%20Avenue,place%20even%20as%20the%20M.T.A https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-....
guywithahat 2y ago
It depends a lot on where you live. In CA they’re spending 100 billion dollars on 500 miles of high speed rail, while in Florida a private high speed rail project spanning 230 miles of rail cost 5 billion. It’s hard to imagine that extra ~85 billion is being well spent, especially given it will almost certainly go further over budget
Klonoar 2y ago
After paying taxes in other countries, and then seeing their standard of living, I think there’s probably more room between US tax spend and “peak efficiently” than your comment would lead someone to believe.

mythrwy 2y ago

The projects you see in the metro would probably be mostly from local (county/ city) taxes as opposed to federal taxes no? (I do realize the feds sometimes contribute partially). Someone could probably make the same arguments for/against local taxes, but OP appeared to be referring to federal taxes as wasteful.

apothegm 2y ago
For some things yes, for some no. Fwiw, urban areas contribute FAR more in federal taxes than they get back in services. Those taxes then are used to support suburban and rural areas that receive much more in services than they pay in taxes. Either way, it’s very evident in many urban areas that taxes paid result in both economic and quality of life benefits.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  And then proponents of an antiquated system try to post memes about how 95% of the counties in the US are red and the electoral college makes sure "cities" don't have an outsized say in government. Perhaps there's a correlation. I do find it amusing how one of the reasons for the "original" (I know) settlers of the US was to get away from feudal landholders dictating politics and life, only to speed run a system where 33,000 sq mi in Wyoming that holds 90,000 people (3 people per square mile) have the same weight as 20 million people elsewhere. This system made sense 200 years ago. Probably. I don't understand why there's this belief that the Founding Fathers were infallible. They certainly weren't. Or this belief that they were all wizened old men. > It’s a simple question—perhaps so basic that it’s been overlooked: How old were the leaders of the American Revolution? > As it turns out, many Founding Fathers were younger than 40 years old in 1776, with several qualifying as Founding Teenagers or Twentysomethings. The Declaration of Independence was signed by: A sixteen year old, a 21 year old, 2 26 year olds, a 27 year old and a 29 year old. Source: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/how-old-were-the-founding-fathers-the-leaders-of-the-american-revolution-were-younger-than-we-imagine.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/how-old-were-the...

lotsoweiners 2y ago

My guess is that you haven’t worked for the government. I’ve spent 20 years working for multiple government agencies and the one commonality is that they are all very wasteful. I’ve spent countless hours working on pet projects for some middle manager or executive who leaves three months later and the project gets scrapped. I’ve seen plenty of passionate developers, both employees and contractors, come in and leave after a year once they’ve understood that no one cares and that they will always be wading through bureaucratic sludge in order to get anything done.

rhelz 2y ago
chuckle My guess is you haven't worked much in the private sector :-) You wouldn't even believe the private jets, yachts, huge bonuses, and other things they spend on which have nothing to do with making money. Why, Elon Musk just got Tesla to pay him $50 billion. For what, exactly?
- tiltowait 2y ago
  The private sector doesn't have a mandate to serve the people and doesn't take money from me at the threat of imprisonment if I don't comply.
- selfmodruntime 2y ago
  The private sector is entirely dependent on the willingness of people to pay them money. Private company revenue is not comparable to tax revenue in orders of magnitude.
  - rhelz 2y ago
    That doesn't mean it is more efficient. The administrative costs of Social Security, for example, are around 1/2%. That compares very favorably with most of the funds in my 401k.
    - selfmodruntime 2y ago
      Great. Now, do military spending. Or, you know, the money the Pentagon just loses every year.

yunohn 2y ago

The unspoken point being made here is about corruption, not efficiency per se. I want all my tax money going towards the public good, not just fractions/percentages of it.

selfmodruntime 2y ago

820 billion dollars (and counting) are spent on war by the US government every year.

rangestransform 2y ago

Even though I use publicly funded infrastructure every day (and I like it, too!), government spending inefficiency in the US is a problem, even compared to “western liberal democracies” as we would say in competitive debate https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html#:~:text=The%20recently%20completed%20Second%20Avenue,place%20even%20as%20the%20M.T.A https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-....

guywithahat 2y ago

It depends a lot on where you live. In CA they’re spending 100 billion dollars on 500 miles of high speed rail, while in Florida a private high speed rail project spanning 230 miles of rail cost 5 billion. It’s hard to imagine that extra ~85 billion is being well spent, especially given it will almost certainly go further over budget

Klonoar 2y ago

After paying taxes in other countries, and then seeing their standard of living, I think there’s probably more room between US tax spend and “peak efficiently” than your comment would lead someone to believe.