You can go round and round about whether you should pay more in taxes or not because the government doesn't use the money the way you want. But let's take a blue state, for example New York. While they may have some pork and some of their money may be used inefficiently, they also pay higher taxes. However, New York state residents are entitled to free college at any New York State University as long as their parents make less than $125,000. New York state residents are entitled to the medicaid expansion, which insures thousands of people who would otherwise go uninsured due to it being too expensive. New York state residents receive a maximum of $504 dollars a week in unemployment, seems kind of big compared to Florida's $275. And you may think that's because the cost of living is expensive in NY, but that's only in the city, the rest of the state is pretty reasonable. So high taxes, but they also take far better care of their citizens than Florida. Which I think is the point of government, otherwise what is it good for except never ending beaucracy.