[Trailerpark Badass]

If someone is paying less than logically someone else must be paying more.

Uh, no.

And you seem to be assuming that I derive some direct benefit from the Fedgov's expenditure of money. I don't.

In fact, quite the opposite is true. Government activity has made everything I do more expensive and more difficult.

Even those things it is legitimately charged to do have become counter-productive to its real purpose of protecting my rights. Our military adventures have produced no discernible endstate that has resulted in my increased safety; our courts frequently thwart the will of the people as enacted by legislation, all while making rulings that help erode our traditional values.

The government uses money to increase its own power and almost never operates in my interest, and if so, then only by coincidence. I only pay the minimum amount of taxes I can get away with because I am afraid I'd get caught and go to jail. I look at taxes like a mob shakedown.

You apparently see your government as some benefactor, or at least a moderately efficient provider of essential services.

I don't.

[Vanders9]

Uh, yes. If someone pays less, then someone else must be paying more. Or if that is not true, the balance of payments is just that little bit worse. The 16.5 trillion debt becomes 16.5001 trillion, or whatever.

I do see HM government as a moderately efficient provider of essential services, or more specifically, I think that's what it SHOULD be. You clearly dont see your government as that, but what you fail to see is that an attitude like that is contributing to the problem. If everyone only pays grudgingly the very minimal amount they can get away with for fear of punishment, the problem of government grasping and corruption is only going to get worse.