Government is big, bad and inefficeint and all the many tasks taken on by the government would be done better and cheaper through private enterprise, the "free market" and competition. Did I get that right? Isn't that the worldview of Conservatives, Republicans and many Libertarians?
Conservatives and Republicans hate taxes, beacuse they take money out of private pockets and send it to the government, where it is "re-distributed". Republicans and Conservatives HATE IT when wealth is re-distributed through the government, right?
Not really. Conservatives and Republicans hate it when money is collected through taxes and redistributed in any form that DIRECTLY benefits a citizen without going through the buffer of a private profit making middle man first.
This is the central issue with Medicare and Social Security and the reason that those programs, along with Medicaid and food stamps and public education excite the ire and wrath of the connected crony capitalists- Money is going directly to the people and they are not getting their cut!
Every single program where tax dollars go directly to the people is in the bull's eye. Medicare, the most efficient and cost effective medical program in America, needs to be dismantled and turned into a coupon program in order to bring back in the profit making middle man who has been disintermediated. The same with education- we need profit making entitities (even if they call themselves "non-profit") to intrude and disrupt public dollars going directly to public education - where is the way station? Where is the profit making private entity?
The corporations and the crony capitalists really love taxes -if they fall on the 99% and if the monies collected go directly to private profit making enterprise in order to collect their tolls as the middlemen.
So, taxes are good and government is good, if the right people are taxed and if the money goes to the right places. This is really all anyone needs to know about our current deficit and debt crisis.