The government has plenty of revenue coming. The outrage should be directed at the waste, fraud, and downright stupidity involved in the spending of the existing funds.
I got involved as a city councilman some years ago and within a few months I was just stunned at what I was finding; all due to the above reasons and this was a small drop in the bucket. However, many small drops can run the bucket over.
Some of the projects involved were based on grants and since many of these grants were dispensed through a state agency which got funds from the Feds who in turn took it from the taxpayers this means the idiocy cost each and every one of you who pay taxes no matter where you live.
Party affilation is irrelevant. They’re all guilty; the only question is the degree.
@JTSanders and @Whitey…You have it wrong…Remember we’re getting paid by all the Oil money from Iran. Oh wait…that never happened.
As for the federal govt with plenty of revenue…Probably…just not EQUAL revenue. But that’s a different discussion…
As for small town budgets…I’m still on our tows budget committee. Town is only about 15k people. It’s NOT wasteful. Sure you can find some waste in some places…but in general…no.The ONLY major problems we’ve had with our budget…was when a couple of private companies we hired to do paving was ripping us off. They were suppose to put down 6" of asphalt…but was only putting down 4". We paid for 6". Had to tak them to court…but of course they filed bankruptcy, We also are constantly fighting businesses to collect taxes (which in NH …business tax is pretty small). The percentage of businesses who we have problems with is about 500% higher then individuals.
I have worked closely with Federal agencies and private companies. The Federal agencies have the oldest equipment and offices. You are also more likely to find Federal employees sharing offices than in private companies. IMO, while there is waste everywhere, it is not higher in the Federal Government. If there is any major source of waste, it is excessive risk aversion in high cost systems. The technical organizations demand numerous requirements and a great deal of testing, which adds dramatically to the cost of a system. It’s fine to do that, but it’s gotten out of hand. OTOH, it got that way because of management’s intolerance for failure. This is a very difficult problem to solve. The ideal risk management program reviews risks, classifies them by severity, likelihood, and cost of abatement, then decides what risk mitigation steps are appropriate for that project. Unfortunately, likelihood and cost are often ignored to CYA.