I really want to see (good, competitive) candidates making the case for government, and taxes to support it. Most of what people value in public life is supported by taxes (in the sense it would be impossible without them).

But the other side has been allowed to criticize taxes and government unfairly with little to no effective opposition. IMO, there is a strong case to be made that waste and corruption is quite low (as a %), and that almost all non-defense spending is spent well and has a positive impact on society, benefiting everyone.

I see a growing narrative that successful people "earned" everything they have on their own. People think "I paid my way through university, no one gave me anything", obviously complete nonsense. "I built my business from nothing, with no help from the government", and so on.

At one point there was an article or podcast (freakanomics?) that said most Americans are proud of paying taxes, and have a higher pay rate than most countries. I thought that was interesting. Curious where that’s trending.

>there is a strong case to be made that waste and corruption is quite low (as a %),

This is even worse, not better. If what we see around us were due to corruption and waste, then the corruption might be rooted out and the waste might be curtailed. But if instead what we see is unavoidable as some intrinsic characteristic of bureaucracy and overhead, then your opponents won't be satisfied until they burn it all down and dance naked in the ashes. And I'd be inclined to celebrate with them.

Unfortunately the slopulist wing of the Democratic party now mostly favors magical tax-cut-and-programs electoral platforms. For example, all but two of the candidates for governor of California from the Democratic party have tax platforms similar or identical to those of the two Republicans in the race.

The issue is that it’s actually very difficult to make that pro-taxation argument, because that position doesn’t have much merit. Pretty much everyone’s experience with things ran by the government is purely negative. They waste billions (trillions?) and then print even more money and inflate the currency. And then you end up with completely subpar services at best.

Fun fact, Americans pay more in healthcare taxes than most Canadians. Our healthcare is free. Well, kinda, about ~75% is free, for Americans it’s more like %40.

But there is absolutely no argument that can be made that if we just raise taxes a little bit we can solve all our problems. The math just doesn’t work out.

Personally I favour the thinking of Adam Smith, John Locke, Rothbard and Friedman, the classical liberal tradition, and as governments balloon across the west, more and more people are coming to that same conclusion. Give us a small efficient government, stay out of the market as much as possible with little to no interference, stop printing money and trying to control the economy it from the top down, stop being technocrats, let people live their lives the way they wish.

> Most of what people value in public life is supported by taxes

Citation needed. If you value something paid for by taxes you should pay for yourself. Feel free to pool your money with all the other people of value the same thing - should be easy if it's most people.

The tax cuts are fine, the only issue is funding them by deficit spending. The government services/entitlement should be cut instead.

You naively assume that there would be nothing else to fill the gap that would be created if the federal/state government just stopped existing tomorrow.

It's same argument as "who would build the roads if the government didn't exist??". Which is also quite naive, because the government doesn't actually build the roads. It forcefully takes tax payer money and then hires a contractor like any other business would to build the roads. If the government stopped existing businesses and individuals would still need a way to transport their goods, so they would just get together and hire contractors to pave roads so they can deliver goods to customers.

Same goes for just about every government program in existence. Before government welfare people would go to their local church or their community for assistance.

Government run schools have had dropping reading scores for decades even though they have more money being shoveled into them then ever before.

College Tuition costs are through the roof because the government got involved with giving out student loans.

Etc. Etc. Etc.