Cutting taxes has consequences. Americans have enjoyed a huge increase to their living standards over the years and have become decoupled from many of the services that their taxes fund. In turn, large swaths of the populace are insulated from the consequences of degrading government services and infrastructure. This has caused a shift in attitudes towards taxes as most of these Americans no longer see the benefit of paying their taxes, incentivizing politicians to focus on cost reduction and tax breaks. The problem here is that this attitude of Anti-Taxation has translated into no longer addressing the root cause, and people believing things like unproven stories of government corruption as being the sole cause of these degrading services despite the evidence for such being low to non-existant. They dont want to address the real cause, so look to a convenient scapegoat that explains the degredation without accepting that they should pay more taxes.

Just like how at the federal level DOGE found almost no waste and corruption during their crusade against the federal services (stoked by similar anti-tax sentiment) it seems that every time a narrative of "corruption" takes hold enough to actually tackle the issue and launch a program to handle it, the program in turn finds its just wasting money.

People just need to accept paying more taxes in order for their society to flourish.

red tape, regulations, corruption, low pay, inflated prices, a gamed system. Although the topic is unrelated, I came across this the other day ... makes one think https://youtu.be/JTEJH-tKv9Q?t=910