Cable monster I think you’re debating in good faith and for that I thank you. But you’ve got a lot of deprogramming to do - your opinions seem very implanted instead of individually formed. I
once believed less taxes and less government spending was an inherently good thing because I was told those things. With a bit of independent research, growing up and leaving the house that watched daily conservative programming, I learned that trickle down economics don’t make any sense and that reducing taxes and government spending isn’t simply good or bad - it’s dependent on what services we feel we no longer need provided by the government.
So your statement of less taxes being better on every level is false from my understanding of the world. And just like you, I’ll provide no sources, because I’m matching your effort here. The reason you’re getting down votes and the reason I can confidently say you’re simply wrong in some of these elements, is because these ideas are easily disproven with a bit of thinking, a bit of research in the real world, and it can upset people when someone holds such wrong opinions attempts to share them on the Internet without first supporting their statements.
Idk if this helps but I’ll continue to respond as long as you continue to come off as not a bot or someone looking to simply stir the pot.
That’s my point, higher taxes does not mean less growth - you have a flawed understanding of taxes and economic growth. The government could take your tax money and convert the overwhelming majority of it towards meaningful services that a private company would have no incentive to be efficient about. That’s what free market capitalism does, it finds services and then chokes out competition until the system is inefficient at using resources.
You can look at healthcare as a great example. The US spends more money on healthcare than most other countries and yet achieves worse results than the overwhelming majority of other countries. This is explicitly because healthcare is privatized in the US and prioritizes economic growth over providing a service. Other governments prioritize providing good healthcare and when government run provide better service and a cheaper price point. So if you live in the US you have worse living conditions because your government doesn’t tax you more.
This same concept applies to transportation, Internet service (and often other utilities), elder care, housing, food. The government’s “structural nature” doesn’t mean much, every company is structured and just as inefficient. The difference is companies have an express intent to make more money, not provide better products or services unless that guarantees more money. What we see in an unregulated economy, which would require taxes to prevent, is companies find it easier to monopolize their market than provide better products/services. Governments on the other hand have the express intent to govern by the will of the people with power. In a good system this is the vast majority of constituents and not just the top 1% of wealth owners.
Your experiences with working for government or company or small town are not invalid but you have to understand that your experience is miniscule compared to the number of experiences out there. This is called anecdotal evidence. You can have all the anecdotal evidence and experience you’d like, but it’s meaningless when compared with the whole world’s experience which can only be measured using real world data - scientific conclusions or at least ones relying on some methodology. Because most governments implore 10s of thousands of people over hundreds of departments and locations, you simply couldn’t experience a meaningful amount. So you have to build your opinions not based on your limited experiences but based on data.