As far as taxes go, everybody can think of something that the government spends money on that they consider wasteful. I believe all the money NASA is pouring into researching the theory of anthropogenic global warming is a colossal waste of time and money that would better be spent elsewhere, but alas, the government disagrees with me. Our job is to vote for the people who reflect our priorities.
This is the point I was trying to make. You realize that you would not get a decent return on your money (in fact it would be a total waste except for the people you hired to build your mars space ship
As far as taxes go, everybody can think of something that the government spends money on that they consider wasteful.
You are subverting the issue here. It isn't that we consider some of what they do wasteful, it is that all of this stuff is merely wealth transfer from those who worked for it by engaging in mutually satisfactory transactions to those who seized it using the threat of death When this is done on an individual basis it it considered "extortion" or "armed robbery." When it is done by government it is considered "taxes"
. If Mars exploration had any profit to it, you can rest assured that plenty of citizens would cough up the money to form a Mars exploration company. However the only way that the "space scientists" can get the money to continue doing what they do is by extracting it at gunpoint from those who earned it honestly. It is a proven fact that to the recipients of taxpayer funded government largess not a single penny is wasted - after all it goes to them personally. However, to those of us who would rather keep the money in our own accounts and spend it on our own prioities, every single cent is a complete waste. "Taxes are not for the benefit of the taxed." Heinlein