This article makes a false assumption that taxes are both moral and necessary:

> The government needs to fund (via taxes) the services it provides

The problem in the USA is that _barely any_ of our taxes actually provide services. A minuscule tax could easily pay for police/fire/roads. Instead most of the tax revenue goes directly to the pockets of 1%-ers. If the US government were on Charity Navigator, it would have a negative star rating.

The hilarious part of the replies here of people naming the program splits think the said programs actually go too citizens.

Instead what you get is the EPA under contract buying $6k office chairs.

This is completely false. Go back to getting real data.

"For Social Security, for example, administrative overhead is about 0.5% of total spending."

https://www.axios.com/2024/11/20/government-spending-musk-tr...

More here: https://www.axios.com/2024/11/16/elon-musk-trump-department-...

"The vast majority of spending goes to:

Social Security: This popular program eats up 20-25% of total federal spending. It supports retirees, disabled individuals, and survivors. Trump has promised to never cut it. In fact, he wants to eliminate taxes on benefits, which would increase the deficit.

Health care: Think Medicare (for seniors) and Medicaid (for low-income individuals). This is another 25% of the budget. Trump has promised to protect Medicare and a lot of his working-class base benefits from these programs.

Defense: The Defense Department and related military spending constitute about 13-15% of the federal budget. Republicans typically want more defense spending, not less. And it's hard to see the shift to space-based warfare costing less.

Interest on the national debt: This one sucks the most for America because you get nothing in return. Interest payments are growing rapidly, now around 8-10% of federal spending. The only way to save money here is to radically cut the debt. Trump's agenda does the opposite.

Safety-net programs: Programs like food benefits (SNAP), unemployment insurance and housing assistance collectively make up about 10%. Trump won with the support of people who get these benefits, so cuts could be a hard sell."

Huh? The bulk of your local taxes probably funds public schools. As for federal taxes, the bulk is social security, followed by defense, Medicare & Medicaid, and various unemployment benefits.

It can be argued that we should be spending less on defense, but the trade-offs there are very different from what you're describing.

The government also does a fair number of indirect subsidies by making some people or businesses pay less tax, but it's generally not the "top 1%". If you're in the top 1% of earners in California, your total effective tax burden is likely 50% or so.

Doesn’t the plurality of spending go to medicare and social security?

> Instead most of the tax revenue goes directly to the pockets of 1%-ers.

Source?

Give me an example of a single jurisdiction where the majority of the spending is not some combination of police/emergency services, education, and healthcare. And the biggest expenses of those businesses/organizations will be labor costs.

Add defined benefit pension (social security) for US federal government.

All the government budgets should be available online to see. Here is the US federal budget from a couple years ago:

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/u-s-federal-budget-breakdown...

And here is the biggest state:

https://ebudget.ca.gov/budget/2024-25EN/#/BudgetDetail

The biggest city (page 11):

https://openbudget.ny.gov/overview.html

The biggest county:

https://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/lac/1168728_2024-25FinalA...