Our friends at It's A Free Country wrote a nice bit of satire based on the east coast's recent Snowpocalypse that, at length, sums up why the Tea Party & the right in general need to calm down about taxes and the role of government.
Practically speaking, when state and local governments cut budgets, our services decline. It may start by turning off every third street light, as the city of Cranston did to deal with its budget issues. It may lead to a Tennessee town that needs to rely on a for-pay fire department that allows a man’s house to burn down. Or it could lead to us waiting days longer for an underfunded sanitation department to make our streets passable.
The far-right needs to realize that cutting taxes for all is not going to solve our problems because, as Mr. Krebs explains, the government needs to have some money so it can do things that citizens expect. Money doesn't grow on trees (or fall from the sky, for that matter).
Instead of arguing about taxes themselves, let's talk about what we are putting them towards. It is guaranteed that effectively directing tax dollars toward education, local/social services, and, yes, the sanitation department will do more good than bickering about how to deal with the concept of Taxes.
As a side note, to back up Mr. Krebs's argument: much like the fun times happening in NYC, the street that I live on was plowed once, before the blizzard was even close to being over. My car nearly got stuck entering the road tonight. Let's put those taxes to good use!