I live in Europe, and in general we don't distrust the state, and we don't want to pay less taxes (we would like more efficiency managing them, though).

Interesting, somehow I never thought of that. Lowering taxes is just not a major talking point in European politics except maybe for certain types of taxes, or distributing them differently, but there are no big divides on this.

The situation is highly regional. Walter's experience is specific to Seattle, but he's right that each region has its own infrastructure problems. Denver metro area (my neck of the woods) has mostly buried power, but a long-term fresh water problem.