<i>&gt; The con is it&#x27;s very difficult to get a government to lower taxes</i><p>This isn&#x27;t true at all. It&#x27;s very difficult to get a government to decrease the services it provides. If you decrease taxes without decreasing provided services, then that would be extremely easy to do -- until you run out of money. Look at the cluster fuck that is Kansas.<p><i>&gt; I&#x27;m not aware of having met anyone who has ever said &quot;I want to pay more tax&quot;</i><p>In that case, you must either not live in the US or else live in a place with either really shit or really parasitic public schools. A huge percentage of school districts are majority funded by local (not state) tax dollars, at rates that are approved directly (i.e., by ballot measure).<p>Schools are the most obvious case because increases in (local) taxes that fund schools are typically ballot measures, and usually affect the population in a pretty homogenous way (except in very urban areas, but even then, property owners are usually a key voting block in local elections). But there are other taxes that a <i>lot</i> of people support increasing and would end up paying -- gas tax, alcohol tax, etc.<p>If you&#x27;ve really never met someone who said &quot;I want to pay more taxes&quot;, then that&#x27;s really just an indication that you&#x27;re living in a bubble. It&#x27;s not at all an uncommon sentiment. In fact, I&#x27;d say that &quot;some of the taxes I pay could be higher if it&#x27;s spent on the right things&quot; is a far more common sentiment than &quot;taxes bad, period&quot;.