The obvious, primary result of government spending is somebody getting money, whether it be a pay check or a subsidy or whatever other way it’s spent. But the less obvious, secondary effect is that the person to whom the taxpayer would have given that same money had he not been taxed now no longer has that money.
You may respond by saying that not all government spending comes from taxes, it can come from bond sales and federal reserve printing. Debt spending worked alright for the past 40 years or so, until around three years ago when shit hit the fan. You always have to pay the bill some time- now there’s a scarcity of jobs and there will be for probably over a decade even by optimistic projections.
Additionally, government spending is more arbitrary than producer/consumer spending because the government is so much of a larger institution, it doesn’t have the same flexibility and doesn’t have the ability to average itself out like a large group of people spending small amounts of money would. And the government spending is less responsive to actual needs of constituents and more responsive to needs of friends of politicians (or worse- campaign contributors. Corruption much?)
People often say “I like taxes because I want roads to be paved,” or something along those lines. But, due to the internet, we’ve finally reached a point where a large group of people can organize, with real-time information, to carry these projects out themselves with their own money. It’s like purposeful, voluntary taxes. Which would kind of be like freedom and autonomy, as opposed to compulsory service to a machine existence where you only have a voice in how money is spent in the most tertiary, mitigated way.
I’m sorry to rant but I just saw that sentiment expressed one too many times not to respond.