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Comment by binspace | Hacker News Reader

I don't appreciate the extravagant waste and the entitlement of the state to impose it's will on the people. With our taxes, we also support bailouts, wars, and other profiteering of those in control. Also, these institutions are basically monopolies, where the people in charge are not really accountable to run them efficiently or effectively.

Does giving the government more money make the government more effective?

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I wasn't aware of the wars or bailouts the city of San Francisco has run. Could you elaborate?

Nice straw man. The originating subject was on taxes (since it takes more than a city to provide all of those services), not only SF taxes :-)

San Francisco residents live in the United States of America. The United States of America imposes federal taxes. Federal taxes have been used to fund wars and bailouts of various failed businesses.

Of course, no real city has the authority to have a military. The city does have a police force, which often acts in ways that do not better the lives of SF residents (parking tickets for example).

You seem to be arguing against city-level taxes with examples of the ways that federal-level taxes are used...

It's not like "public transportation, fire safety, paved roads, bridges, public schools, police officers, health inspectors, safety inspectors, public parks, libraries, clean air, (relatively) fair corporations, airports, hospitals, court systems, electricity, vehicle regulation, elections, veteran associations, child support, public television..." is entirely in the domain of the city government.

I just have a adverse reaction to arguments that claim I should appreciate a service provider that charges too much. Sorry, don't like getting ripped off.

  > bailouts, wars, and other profiteering

This was your original argument against being charged too much by the city government.

  > Sorry, don't like getting ripped off.

You could do without the snark. This came across to me like you were implying that I thought that you liked being ripped off or that you deserved it.

>Of course, no real city has the authority to have a military.

To be fair, Singapore does have a Ministry of Defence and an Army.

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