If taxes were lower all your stuff would cost more without the infrastructure to support it.

Oh the bullshit they brainwashed you with. What infrastructure? Non-existent healthcare? Non-existent public transportation? Non-existent fiber to the home? Non-existent policing of crimes? Schools that look like jails? Homes built of shitty wood? Power outages, fires, disasters all the time?

There are countries with far better infrastructure that have less taxes. The US loves spending tax dollars on a bunch of inefficiencies and meddling in the affairs of other countries I will never live in, with my money.

This feels true, but the name "third order taxes" does not clearly point to this phenomenon. I think of second order taxes as "my employer paid pay roll tax, so I get less money" or "this good was tariffed, so I payed more for it even though it was imported through a middle man and not directly paid by me."

I will say that what you spend your money on has a huge impact of how much the IRS gets at the end of the day. For an extreme example, if you give the money to a 501c then it's not taxed, and there are several ways the 501c could spend the money that wouldn't be taxed....

I'm swimming in taxes and treading water is hard enough already.

Maybe if they taxed me less, I donate more to 501c's that do more per dollar than the government does.

That sucks. The individual income tax burden in the US is higher than developed countries. You really have to plan around it.