3 ms·

> If you aren't actually reinvesting capital, pay your damn taxes. Don't be an asshole. Why? So my government has more missiles to blow up children? No thanks.

• tootie 7mo ago
  Most tax money goes to social programs. Especially at the state and local level.
• mcmcmc 7mo ago
  You know that’s not the entire budget right? You’re being an asshole by denying funding for disaster relief, schools, healthcare, roads, scientific research, all the public goods and services that don’t work on a profit driven model, but you still get a direct benefit from. If you want to play concerned citizen get out and protest, vote with your dollars by not throwing them at big tech companies who kowtow to politicians and fund their campaigns. But if you think you’re sending kind of message by withholding your taxes, it’s really just that you’re a selfish asshole.
  • __MatrixMan__ 7mo ago
    > vote with your dollars by not throwing them at big tech companies Abstaining is not voting. If you want to vote with your dollar, spend it actively undermining big tech companies. Get out there and blind some cameras or something.
    • mcmcmc 7mo ago
      > Abstaining is not voting. Fair if you’re already not giving them money. But if you manage a sizable chunk of cloud spend at AWS, GCP, Azure etc, you can send a meaningful signal by taking away that revenue and shifting it to a company that’s not aiming for neo-feudalism.
• surprisetalk 7mo ago
  There are more productive ways to vote with your money than tax evasion. You can make tax-exempt donations, or start your own non-profit organization. Some people hoard money without building businesses, without participating in government, without contributing to welfare. People who take more than they give are assholes.
  • SubmarineClub 7mo ago
    > People who take more than they give are assholes. 100%. I hate welfare leeches too
• petcat 7mo ago
  You're conflating "taxes" with federal taxes. In my state (NY), I pay income tax to the feds and NY state. I pay property tax to my county and town. This pays for things like roads, cleanup and maintenance, the school district, the library, the parks and sports recreations. The community trails and wildlife preserves.
• usefulcat 7mo ago
  The federal government can basically print money. The only reason they "need" your tax money is to limit inflation.
  • mcmcmc 7mo ago
    You’re not wrong, unchecked inflation is bad for most people though. Stable currency is pretty important for trade and economic stability. Unless you prefer heating your home by burning stacks of cash
    • usefulcat 7mo ago
      Oh, I agree. I never said unchecked inflation was at all desirable or even ok. My point was that local and state governments do need your tax dollars, in the sense that that is literally their income. But for the federal government it's different. If federal tax revenue declines, they can just sell more treasury notes and continue to spend as much as before. In that sense, federal tax revenue has no direct effect on federal spending.