In the US, one of the parties champions small government, which implies lower taxes, and they get plenty of votes.
People are generally good, but they are also selfish as all hell. Everyone could use a bit more money though, and therin lies the problem. If there's any way I can get more money, I'm going to do it. Civic education be damned, the only thing I'm going to fund is things that go back into my pocket. I don't need the police (until I do), I don't need firefighters (until I do), I don't need school teachers at all. Sure, the long term effects of that are going to be bad, but I need just a little bit of money now to help with things, and someone else is gonna pay for those things, so why should I bother. People are gonna min-max the system because they care about what they care about. Schoolteachers are going to give all their money to the schools, because it goes back into their pockets, and the military is going to fund the military.
Money itself is a construct. We could just abolish it. With machines, we have long surpassed the need for everyone to work. We can have one cadre of people who do the work of feeding and housing everyone, and then everyone else gets to go out and play. Unfortunately, reality kicks in, humans are gonna human, and that's not gonna work. So we're left with money to organize our society, and we give money to the government to spend on what they spend our taxes on.
