Voting has become a financial transaction. The citizen trades/sells his or her vote to a politician. The politician is then expected to provide some kind of government benefit to the voter in trade. This produces the kind of politicians we have. If voting is a commercial transaction, then there is “profit” to be made. There is a “skim” that the politicians will come to expect. But, the politicians have to gather money from someone in order to “sell” that money. That is where the taxpayer comes in. We provide the money that the politicians “sell” to buy votes. We assume that the politicians are using our money for our benefit. They do....to a degree. But we are talking trillions of dollars now. Some of the money we give the politicians can easily be skimmed off to buy votes and provide some loot for the politicians. What’s some billions missing from trillions of dollars? It is in the economic, political and personal best interests of politicians to provide the bare minimum of services and take in the maximum amount of tax money. The Democrats like voting as an economic transaction. It is to their benefit and they can understand and manipulate it.