Eh, I think both of those are silly framings. Nobody likes paying taxes.

I'm a "pro balanced budget" liberal, and that meant that throughout the Bush years I was saying "Hey, we're gonna have to pay for these tax cuts eventually", while simultaneously saying "Hey, let's cut defense and homeland security spending because at least 1/2 of it is BS that doesn't make us safer."

Not like I love the idea of paying more taxes, or of quote "big government" - I just give basic arithmetic a lot of respect.

If nobody likes paying taxes then, why don't we as a society legislate ourselves lower taxes and cuts in defense spending?

I believe there is a famous quote about that.