Why more Americans Are not mad at the complete waste of our tax money is beyond me
For a billion dollars, other countries are successfully building entire transit systems, high speed rails, other infrastructure, or running massive welfare programs.
We should be getting so much more.
I imagine this wouldn't be so controversial if taxes were not so exorbitant, if the tax code was straightforward and if institutions were more inspiring of the public's confidence. Class warfare isn't an alternative to acknowledging these problems.
Certainly not exorbitant compared to what they were here in the US in, say, the period post-WWII. Y'know, one of the biggest boom times in our nation's history, when we had massive innovation and growth of the middle class.
Compare America to America rather than expecting that the US adhere to the relatively more collectivist norms of other nations.
The Gilded Age was an even more productive era in terms of growth and upward mobility, with no income taxes levied at the Federal level. It was the progressive era that brought an end to this prosperity and ushered in the IRS, the 3rd central bank and an increasing number of foreign conflicts. Further economic interventions brought about and prolonged the great depression.
After WWII, much of the world's industrial base had been destroyed. Militaries funded by taxes destroyed productive capacity. Attributing this period of relative prosperity to the income tax would be seriously misguided. Instead you might have asked how much more successful the post-war economy would have been with lower taxes and less central planning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1913
> It also established a one percent tax on income above $3,000 per year; the tax affected approximately three percent of the population.
https://taxfoundation.org/blog/independence-day-taxes-then-a...
>Taxation in the United States in 1776 was incredibly different than what it is today. There were no income taxes, no corporate taxes, and no payroll taxes. Instead, the American Colonies (and to a larger extent, the British Crown) were primarily funded by tariffs and excise taxes.
https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/colonial-life-...
>The average tax rate in colonial America was between 1 and 1.5%
And for that much the colonists fought a war for independence. The "modern democracies" you reach for would most likely not exist as such if not for that precedent.