Comment by piva00
3 days ago
> How much of your money do you spend on paying for kids school lunches, paying medical bills of terminally ill kids and paying off the student loans of graduates?
At least in the society I live all of those are partially paid by me through taxes.
I'm very glad to do it since the existence of kids school lunches, free healthcare (including for the terminally ill), and free universities make my life much better since society as a whole is better off. Even as an immigrant which did not use any of those services, I'm glad to do my part to pay for them, it's just the cost of a good society.
So you're just making the money that you are forced by the government to pay or face going to prison into a virtue.
Do you actually put any of your own money to help support children/sick individuals other than just getting the money forcefully taken from you and being told that it's totally going to the kids/healtchare, while 50% of it gets burned up by government beurocrats?
I specifically said "I gladly pay it", it's not the threat of imprisonment which compels me to pay my taxes. Instead it's all the benefits I see from my taxes around me: education, transportation, public amenities, healthcare, so on and so forth. Each aspect being taken care of improves society, the holistic whole is larger than the sum of its parts, there is synergy when your population is educated, don't need to spend lots in transportation, lives in great well-taken care of urban environments, can access well-maintained public parks, pools, sports facilities, don't need to be afraid of getting sick, etc.
I do actually also spend my own money in monthly charitable donations, including the UNICEF. I think it's a basic prerogative that when you make enough money for living comfortably you should also find charities you trust and support them.
> getting the money forcefully taken from you and being told that it's totally going to the kids/healtchare, while 50% of it gets burned up by government beurocrats?
You don't even know where I live to be able to say what percentage is burnt or spent in bureaucracy. It's unfortunate your view of government seems to be based on an inefficient and ineffective one, perhaps it's your experience (and it's my experience in my home country) but by being blindly ideological about it without ever experiencing a somewhat functioning government you are missing out.