If you actually looked at any western country's budget, you'd see the vast mmajority of tax revenue is spent on welfare (and in the US case, warfare); only a miniscule amount is spent on infrastucture. Singapore for instance has way better education outcomes and infrastructure than most western countries in spirte of way lower taxes.
> The money actually going for care is pretty minimal.
That is literally the point.
Welfare = Welfare bureaucracy + Welfare Benefits
This is true of everything the government does. Government = bureaucracy + benefits, with a larger percentage going to support the bureaucracy than in any other organization or context.
And even if you increase money for benefits, the same (or sometimes larger percentage) goes to supporting the bureaucracy of those benefits.
That's a lie. The idea of Government was sold to the general population as "we'll make your lives better", not "we'll become that humongous monster you'll serve".
HN rules: apply the most gracious interpretation to my comment.
> you'd see the vast mmajority of tax revenue is spent on welfare
That is the point from the prior comment I am supporting. I am emphasizing that this is true because of the inevitability of bureaucracy inside of the very notion of "government".
Government was never capable of efficient utilization of taxes for maximizing benefits to society. It can never promise that due to basic incentive structures and the mathematics of game-theory. Of course, politicians can lie about it (and many do all the time).
It can only promise an attempt and some degree of benefits provided.
All of them are above the minimum, so what does that really achieve?
Message for the central planners: you can't tax me anything if I don't work. Or if I work but not here.
And let's not forget that involuntary taxation is theft.