Would you rather pay high taxes...?

Question

and know that your money was really going to help needy people recover... or pay medium taxes and have needy people get shoddy help that doesn't really work?

Sort of like would you buy yourself a reliable car for good money, or a junker that may keep taking more money and never work well....
Cause you get what you pay for, right? Even with social services.

While charity is a wonderful thing, what would happen to our society if there were people who didn't get enough donated to their needs charity? Isn't that why we pay taxes - so that the funding is distributed to pay for things we may not agree are our priority but are someone's priority? (like,say, a war)

Thank you for being sincere/ glad these answers so far are sincere

Answer 1

I would rather pay low taxes and help those that I choose to help. I would therefore not help all those people who simply use the system. I only consider someone poor and needy when they have exhausted all resources available to them to turn their situation around. Unfortunately, very few of these people deserve help.

Answer 2

Correct, for most things you get what you pay for. This is not the case for social programs. In most social programs, you pay for people's lifestyles with no contribution back to the public good. Hence we pay more taxes and fail to receive more productivity. In a perfect world, your heart is in the right place. Hey we've all been there. Trying as hard as you can and still can't make it. However, our current government, which is borderline socialistic in it's public policies, has very broad and fluctuating definition of "needy" and the politicians use situational interpretation to gain power. In terms of higher taxes...they are already high enough. Those people who actually pay taxes, only about 50% of the adult population (go ahead and check the stats with the IRS for yourself, they are eye opening as to how few make up the financial backbone of the country from a revenue standpoint), I feel would agree.

Answer 3

I don't think the government should fund social services. I think it is better when I have chosen a charity that I believe does a good job at providing and using my money well. If I was able to pay less in tax, I would be able to spend more on charity.

Answer 4

I'll keep my low taxes and provide charitable assistance as I deem proper. (I give significant amounts to charities that make highly efficient use of my donations, much better than any government does with tax revenues.)

I'm OK with the government providing a basic temporary safety net but do not see a need for high taxes to fund the lazy and unmotivated.