Other advanced industrialized countries spend much more of their GDP on government. Inequities are still quite pervasive throughout our society, we need more money, more programs, et cetera. The choice remains the two sides of the same coin, dumb and dummer. The problem is simply that running deficits every year adds to debt, and all debt has interest, and that interest is eating our collective lunch. There is a law of business, and that law is the cost of doing business goes into the cost of any goods produced.
Taxes are a cost of doing business that are considered when pricing goods.
The second law of doing business is that the business never pays what it doesn't have to pay. In other words we pay corporate taxes, not Exxon, or Phillip Morris. The fact is they raise the price of their goods to compensate the tax expense, it becomes a cost of producing the product. Fiscal Procrastination One typical argument against balancing the federal budget is that most house holds have debt, they have car payments, a home mortgage, et cetera. They don't have the money in full to pay cash for a house or a car, so going into debt is a necessary and good thing.