> "It's a fallacy to focus solely on the desirable components of government spending."
Without going into what proportion of spending might directly benefit Google, I do agree with you. Return on tax revenue is nowhere close to 1:1 nor is it being spent optimally.
But Google does not decide how that money is allotted. They can't say "I'm only paying 25% because I only approve of 25% of expenditures." When they limit their exposure to 25% of what it might be (paying 4% instead of 20%) they're still cutting the desirable spending to 25% of its budget.
So they're still strangling those things they benefit from.
And if the giants generations before Google had done the same, one wonders whether the component technologies and projects and research that Google built from would have been part of the lucky 25% of spending that survived inevitable cuts?
Your original post implied google is being a freeloader: "...they benefit in no small part from that money. [...] Frankly, without government money, Google would not exist."
I'm just pointing out that if google limits their exposure to 25% of what it might be, they are still paying for all the services they use and far more. They pay not be paying for all the services you want them to pay for, but that isn't the same thing.
I'm also pointing out that it's not quite honest to list only the useful government services, when they are dwarfed by wealth transfers. That's a tactic worthy of congress, similar to naming a law "To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes" (where "other purposes" == bank bailouts).
Without going into what proportion of spending might directly benefit Google, I do agree with you. Return on tax revenue is nowhere close to 1:1 nor is it being spent optimally.
But Google does not decide how that money is allotted. They can't say "I'm only paying 25% because I only approve of 25% of expenditures." When they limit their exposure to 25% of what it might be (paying 4% instead of 20%) they're still cutting the desirable spending to 25% of its budget.
So they're still strangling those things they benefit from.
And if the giants generations before Google had done the same, one wonders whether the component technologies and projects and research that Google built from would have been part of the lucky 25% of spending that survived inevitable cuts?