You choose to ignore that HOW TAXES ARE SPENT has as much or more to do with having a "better society" than taxation levels themselves. When you use success to bolster failure as a policy OF COURSE people push back. People like myself who have paid for educations, provide good jobs with benefits, match their own Medicare and SS, provide their own retirement funds, and find that over 60% of their revenues go right back into the economy in the form of overhead and taxation while constantly being threatened that it will vanish, or that MORE MORE MORE is needed. COSTS. Higher taxation invariably creates higher costs, especially when tax revenues are given to politicians to pad the coffers of their cronies and to buy votes, rather than being used for services for ALL. Democrats never admit that in their "simple math". Just because the government CAN influence the economy doesn't mean it SHOULD.