Speaking for myself, I used to be sort of libertarian when I was young. Getting a job that paid well and living on it convinced me that paying taxes really wasn't that bad and made me more liberal. Then I worked for the government for a while and found that a lot of what people complain about with regards to how the government spends money weren't just true. Nowadays I'm ok with taxes, but I'd rather the government get things done by just mailing checks to people, which is simple and hard to mess up.