Hot take: a lot of tax revenue does contribute to exports etc. The government is spending a lot of money re-digging that shipping channel in Baltimore after the bridge collapsed. Just one recent example, but pretty much every bridge and port and road in the world has a lot to do with taxes.

The government is also spending lots of money on social programs people like too much for even the Republicans to try to repeal, yet the government is not taxing enough to cover them. Letting rules slide for certain people means more debt for everyone else, and is what a lot of economists would call "arbitrary redistribution", which is bad.