Taxes only benefit one individual: the politician who promises them in exchange for the votes of those who want "benefits", which have to be paid for by someone else. There is no such thing as "public money". The State's only source of revenue is to confiscate what someone else has already earned. Once they take all of that savings & property, there's nothing left to distribute to those they've promised all their "benefits". The extent to which this nonsense advances is inherent in the Class Warfare rhetoric, which liberals invoke ad infinitum. The Liberal/Socialist politician always wants people to believe SOMEONE ELSE will "pay". But that "someone else" is always - us. Either we produce and get punished, or we end up expecting the "benefits" which no longer exist to be gotten. Once no one is producing anymore, there are no productive results (money, assets, property) left for the Redistributionist to redistribute to those he's promised redistribution. Raising Taxes on those who produce really is as simple as killing the Golden Goose. That's what's happening in Europe now. The Socialists have killed their own Golden Geese, so their only recourse is to beg other nation's Golden Geese to keep the Eggs of Gold coming. It aint brain surgery to understand how all Socialism fails. It has to; it's failure is inexorable to its nature.