Would you make the similar protest if they complained about their tax dollars going to wars and spying?

The people you vote for when you want lower taxes (Republicans) are not going to cut budgets for wars and spying, they're going to cut "redistributive" programs for "welfare queens."

Libertarians might get it done, but there's a serious bootstrapping problem in getting enough people to vote for them that they have a chance. For now, every vote for a libertarian is thrown away to idealism where it could at least be doing something.

I find it amusing that the cracked articles we were pointed to a few posts up talk about the mindset of "poor people think in terms of 'what do we need this instant' rather than 'what will we need in the future' due to scarcity of wiggle room in the budget". Basically one of the problems is people can't securely make smart long-term choices because the risk/reward calculation says if one unexpected thing comes up, the long-term payoff won't ever arrive because of getting hurt in the short term.

If you look at dollars as "lifestyle points", and votes as "societal points", the same reasoning is going on right here: the scarcity of "societal points" is causing the same reasoning about how to vote as poor people have to make for spending.

Not sure what that means - only noticing that there are parallels.

I think his point is 'Some people like wars and spying, some people like welfare.'

My taxes also make an enormous difference to my welfare. There are things that are best done collectively.

That's actually the entire point they are trying to make. They don't make an enormous difference to your welfare. At least not when compared to someone making $15k / year and trying to support a family. You really can't understand what it's like to not know where your next meal is coming from unless you have been there.

I have been there.

I get the that the safety net helps.

My point is that civil society helps every one.

My one criticism of my fellow liberals is their messaging doesn't appeal to their audience's self interest AND their sense of fairness.

I understood the grandparent's point to be that the taxes contribute to the tax-payers welfare in the form of keeping society more-or-less together, which is a huge benefit. Maybe I misunderstood though.

Ah. Good point.