You said it!
I was always conservative more or less. Maybe more libertarian in my late teens, but came back to conservative.
Even so, it was still a shock when I had to pay self-employment taxes for the first time. “WHAT?! I have to pay one out of every three paychecks to the government?!”
Same here and I’m a kid from the late 90’s. In canada before the age of 18, the law says you dont pay taxes. Right 2 weeks after my 18th, I said “where did the rest of my money go? Taxes? What’s that?”