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Originally Posted by GrantMercury [D]id you go to public school? Did your employees? Does your business utilize the government-created internet? Do you have a corporation or LLC that shields you from personal liability? Have you ever litigated in a taxpayer-funded court of law? Is your money in a bank protected by the FDIC? ...

[D]id you go to public school?
Yes and my parents paid property taxes to support the schools.

Does your business utilize the government-created internet?
I paid tax money that the government used to innovate the internet but would agree that the money was well spent in disruptive and innovative basic research (a beneficial use of taxpayer dollars)

Do you have a corporation or LLC that shields you from personal liability?
Yes, but personal liability is not the primary reason that I am incorporated -- that is naive.

Have you ever litigated in a taxpayer-funded court of law?
Yes, but what does that have to do with the price of potato chips in Egypt? We live in a nation of laws, our tax dollars support the Courts and they are open to the indigent of society for free (court documents are allowed to be filed free In forma pauperis)

Is your money in a bank protected by the FDIC?
Yes, but every bank pays the FDIC a premium for this insurance and passes the cost to the bank's customers in the forms of; fees, less interest paid on deposits, and more interest paid on its lending. FDIC insurance is not a free ride paid buy the government and a deficit results in the premium rates charged to the individual banks to rise.

FYI;
Federal and state unemployment taxes are adjusted according to actual outflows also.
Social Security disability and retirement is taxpayer earned and funded.
Medicare is an earned benefit of Social Security.

All of us benefit from some government spending directly and that is one of the legitimate purposes of government. But whether I pay more for benefits like the basic research in developing the internet as example we both get the same opportunity to profit from it or use it -- some can develop a business from it and others will use it for entertainment and their other needs (each according to their ability and effort). We all benefit, we all have an equal opportunity to use it. How we use it is up to us -- in most countries we can direct our own destiny, we are not oppressed surfs in the Middle Ages.

See Robbie: I can agree with you when you are right