If you are going to have a government, you are going to have to pay for it with taxes. Tax levels must be high enough to provide for all government expenditures, creating a balanced budget in normal years and surpluses in prosperous years. A tax system of increased rates for increased income is fair to everyone, and this is the system which brought prosperity and fair income distribution to America in the quarter century after WWII.
We need to move those rates higher for extreme high income. Corporate loopholes must be closed. The estate tax is necessary and makes sense. Social Security and Medicare deductions are not really taxes, but rather insurance premiums put aside for old age. High state sales taxes on basic necessities should be rolled back to help low income people. Gasoline taxes are at record lows as a percentage of the total cost, and only a tiny fraction of what they are in Europe, and higher gas taxes would be a big source of revenue as well as working toward a lowering of greenhouse gasses. Higher taxes DO NOT stifle the economy, but they simply move economic activity into community based needs and away from private expenditure. “Tax” is not a bad word to anyone who understands the need for government. Waste is a bad word, and tax money should never be wasted. Fair salaries for government employees is not waste.