Valerie: "My trouble at tax time comes when I have to exercise my imagination and think that my few dollars will fund something I like "
You seem to confuse taxes with charity. They are not at all the same. Taxes are mandatory, they must be paid regardless of one's opinion of it's use. That you want to support the NEA, unemployment comp, etc. is fine. But you are also supporting Blackwater. You paid for the bullets that killed the pirates, you paid for Gitmo.
You gladly and proudly pay your taxes that support these very things you detest. You do so by deluding yourself into thinking that YOUR money only goes for the good things. You are wrong.
The reason many of us protest taxes is exactly because we are not so delusional. We KNOW where the money often goes and we do not like it. So we protest. I suppose we could just meekly write the check and quietly go about our lives pretending that we are not part of the problem. I suppose we could just sit back, turn on the TV and HOPE the government uses our money wisely and benevolently.
Your sheepish attitude feeds the machine. Your lockstep complacency does nothing to reign in the government’s many bad decisions.
If you had a child that sometimes did the right thing and sometimes did the wrong thing, would you ignore the wrong behaviors? Would you just look away and HOPE that the child started behaving better? No, of course not, you would intercede and call for correction. You would PROTEST the bad behavior, would you not?
Like it or not this is our responsibility, we are our government’s keeper. It belongs to us it is answerable to us and we are duty bound to take responsibility for what our government does.
Even those of us who protest taxation are aware that some taxation some government services are necessary. Many of us are quite fine with roads and bridges, VA benefits, etc. That is NOT what we are protesting. What we are protesting is the spiraling tax and spending increases and cosmically wasteful management of our tax dollars.
If you throw a few trillion dollars into the air certainly a good bit of it will end up helping the needy, that’s not good management, that’s not fiscal responsibility, that’s not wisdom, that’s just statistical probability. Yes the government does some good things, no one denies that. But the government is still your employee; it is your responsibility to see that they do their job efficiently and correctly. Sticking your head in the sand helps no one.

Certainly Jesus wants us to help the poor. He wants us to WILLINGLY donate our time and money to help our fellow man. But taxation is not this. Taxation is you deciding how much someone else should ‘donate’, backed by the power of punitive measures should they fall short. Is THAT what Jesus wanted? Taxation to aid the poor and homeless is only necessary because the 75% of people in this country who call themselves Christians failed at doing the job voluntarily.

As a procrastinator, Yesterday i rushed to mail 'Uncle-Sam' & 'Aunt-liberty' a Tax letter w/"Gelt" {Money}. And from that Post Office; i

[WE] found our selves at a "Britz-Millah" {Circumscision Party} at a conservative Synogogue in Brookly, N.Y.

Through-out the Services [Chanting, Philosophizing etc..] via Symbolisms [Doviting back & forth, reciting, Together Praying out loud, Meditaing silrently humming & vibrating etc..] & catching-up with the congreation via the Pages of the book... All Out Of Respect?, THAT

there was No SiGHT of nor any FEELiNG of or for "A Personal G-D" whether 'Praying', [Speaking to "IT" (G-D)] nor when 'Meditaing' to "IT" [Listening, within, to "IT"]. Note: "G-D" "IT" aka "iTSELF" is never a HE nor a SHE). BUT,

but, a wonderful miracle happened Yesterday; Hypothetically,

i placed & gave the 8 day old Baby boy {my New Nephew} me 'Tzefer' (Relig-Book) and i [WE] imagined the youngest Lad started to {Miraculously} clearly read out loud them Holyi Parshas/Pasuks/Stanzas/Sura's or words therefrom! So, Does this experience Sounds familiar?

Note: History is OUR Jury. And History, from whence WE-[i]-Ye, Thou art coming & arrowed-from, gives us HOPE! And through this HOPE we are destined to Space-Forth {Sin & Curseth Free} and are Future-Bounded because

History (past) can be a righteous & or a fair jury only when Man-Made, not god(s)Made, History is "Recorded-Properly" & strictly based on TRUTH {opposite MYTH}; includes correcting misguiding Tribal/Clanish Pre-Apocalyptic Folklores? So,

For this Reason; Only, "In IT [i] TRUST."

Soo, Never can any {Man made or not} GOD(s) SYSTEM [INSTITUTION(s)] pay OUR rents or Mortgages, nor Rescue OUR Enviroment, or Bail-Out Our "ECONOMY" {a Man made endeavour or Phenomonon known as "CHOiCE"} nor can they Stop Nations from 'Hassling Over a Name for that Evil? Man-Made "MY-god(s)" story iNSTEAD Of "OUR"-innate G-D" but TRUE (opposite MYTH) story!

Interestingly: Todays HUEMATES (no longer HUMANs) Cannot live by Bread Alone, Let alone TAXES! BUT,

But Remember: BiOFiNITE-DEATH is and was never OUR "TRAN{s}FiNiTE" Death!? A Realization that's worth paying For, especially in The NEW-HOLYi-LAND; U.S. of A's!

I think that Americans who follow the Jesus of the Gospels are proud to pay their taxes as part of the price of a free society.

It's those who follow the Jesus of the "family" bookstores who think it's blood money to a tyrannical government.

Letting all the businesses that are getting government help right nowfail would only result in more unemployment and lost benefits, including health insurance.