I pay my taxes! and Politicians work for those that pay their wages... And I can prove it - Dammit!

People do work for those who pay them.

If you work for a company, you produce whatever the boss tells you to produce or you are free to leave, and he is free to stop paying you when you stop producing for him.

Or If you own a company and supply services or goods.
The goods you make will go to the people who pay you for them.

This is true everywhere....... In other words...
To the extent that this is a voluntary arrangement is the extent to which this is an economic law. (i.e. It’s pretty much universal)
This law is applicable to a free market and it also works in politics.

I.e. It’s the same with politicians. They supply their services to those who pay them.

“...But...but.... I vote for politicians and I pay my taxes and the politicians never do what they said they would do when they were running for office....blah.... blah.... Blah..... I pay their wages and I pay the wages of the bureaucrats and the cops and all of the alphabet agencies........ They work for me!....”

Here’s some news for ya!....... No, you don’t and No, they don’t

One reason people get frustrated and angry at bureaucrats is because they do not understand some basic meanings of everyday language.

Now, you’re going to argue and tell me that you do understand basic English language, and that’s not why you get annoyed at politicians and bureaucrats..... It’s because the politicians are corrupt...... Especially those republirats or those democrats or lefties or righties or libtards or water melons or whomever... And who the hell am I to be telling you what you understand and don’t understand?...

Well, ok. You could choose to attack the messenger, or you could consider this...

Here is the first error made by most people. “...I pay my taxes”
No you don’t.
Some of your wealth that you earned in your day job ends up in the hands of politicians, but you never paid it to the politician. You were obliged to hand it over or there would be bad consequences for you. (And you know it).

A payment is some kind of mutually agreed amount of value that is exchanged between 2 or more parties when terms of a contract have been satisfied. (Verbal or written agreement - it doesn’t matter). The point is that it must be voluntary. (By definition, if it’s not voluntary, then it cannot be a contract or an agreement, therefore it’s not a payment).

Ok, now you say “...but I pay my taxes voluntarily because I think I receive good value from the government”
Fine. That may be true today. But you still don’t “pay” it. Here’s why....

The tax rate is just a figure decided by politicians, that they believe will maximise the receipts (money) from the people that produce wealth in a country.

Note. - At different periods in history, the tax rates have fluctuated in a range between 1% and 98%. (Different rates have applied to different groups of earners in a population, just like today. But the fact remains that the rates have been applied to people).

The fact is that the rate of tax on your earnings is decided purely by how much the politicians think they can get away with without annoying the cattle too much, and risking a mutiny.
Right now, in most Western countries the tax rate on earnings is somewhere around 35% - 55%. But all of these western governments have huge debts.

(For simplicity, we will accept the premise that taxes are supposed to pay for the running of government agencies and wages for politicians etc etc).

Why is the tax rate lower than it has been historically and governments have huge debts? Surely it would be more sensible just to raise tax rates and pay off the debts. Wouldn’t it be cheaper than paying interest on all that debt?
One reason they don’t raise the tax rate is given above.

“...but I pay my taxes voluntarily because I think I receive good value from the government”
Let’s assume that statement is true. (I suppose there may be someone out there who may actually believe that).
You believe it’s good value right now when you hand over say, 50% of your earnings each week. Would you still believe it to be good value if that rate went up to 98%?
The point is, that if there was some tax rate percentage at which you didn’t believe you were getting good value, you are not “allowed” to refuse to hand over your money. You are forced to hand over whatever amount the bureaucrat tells you to hand over.

For “paying taxes” to be voluntary, you must have the right to agree to the “payment” and also have the right to disagree with the “payment.”
(So, a “tax payment” is really an oxymoron. A “payment” is voluntarily and a “tax” isn’t).

For convenience, let’s accept the wikipedia definition: - ........mandatory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed upon a taxpayer (an individual or other legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund various public expenditures.[1] A failure to pay, or evasion of or resistance to taxation, is punishable by law.......

....So, when you see politicians running for office during elections, they receive money from the general public in donations as well as from corporations to finance the election campaigns.

This is normally referred to as “donations.”
As you no doubt realise, these corporations aren’t giving politicians $1 million donations just to “help them out a bit.”

(Actually, it would likely be illegal for a CEO of a corporation to do just that, because a CEO has a legal obligation to shareholders to only take action that is likely to increase the profits to the company and hence to the shareholders. I.e. - He’s not allowed to give away the shareholders’ money willy-nilly with no expectation of a return).

The politician also receives money from lobbyists once they have been elected. And that, dear reader, is who pays the politician.

(The political lobbying racket etc comes under the subject of Public Choice Theory, if you’re interested).

For now, the point here is that Joe Public does not “pay” the politician. He is forced to hand over his money. And so, the politician has no obligation or incentive to work for Joe Public
The lobbyist does pay the politician. We know it is a payment because it is voluntary. He is not obliged to hand over money to the politician. (See note (1) below)

The money received via tax, is money that is guaranteed, no matter what a politician does. The government will receive that money whether they did a good job or a bad job, or no job, so why would any politician do any work to supposedly justify it? It’d just be a waste of his time.

So, the politician generally does not produce or provide anything useful for anyone who does not pay him. He does however, provide his services to those who do pay him. And that is in line with the economic law stated earlier.

(The intention is to help people reduce the frustration they seem to feel, when they see bureaucrats screw their lives up. It may help to understand that these bureaucrats are not their public servants, because they do not pay their wages).

(Note (1)) - It’s not uncommon for businesses to be extorted by politicians of course. It’s just a protection racket and is pretty well documented.