I’ve seen a few posts here on Hexbear where people lament their taxes being used for things they don’t like. I get the sentiment, but I think it’s mistaken because it’s not a zero-sum equation where the state must have a monetary revenue equal to or greater than expenditure.
In a state with monetary sovereignty, the taxes citizens pay are not what enables the state to spend money and procure weapons etc. If US citizens paid a billion less in taxes, for example, it would make no difference for military spending.
It’s also a rhetorical mistake in that it plays into right wing framing that justifies austerity, and implies the idea that the wealthy who pay more in taxes are the ones who keep society running and support the poor.
Even if you want to talk about taxes, I think this framing has it backwards. Governments put together budgets, and then taxes (and other financial tools like debt, for example) are built around paying that budget. This way suggests governments collect arbitrary tax amounts and then spend it on whatever they like, and so if it doesn’t get spent on one area it would be spent somewhere else. In fact, if it wasn’t budgeted it wouldn’t be collected at all.
This fixing still feeds into the ideologically incorrect view of money, taxpayers, and the rich floating society, however.