Negative Railroad

On a recent trip to TJICistan, I was struck by this perspective on the tax forfeiture shut-down of an ice cream shop. If government was a person, it would be an evil stepmother.

You see, deprived of $140k, the state can not do necessary things like pay for seven hundredths of one percent of the cost of a new high school in Newton with a restaurant and a “trendy, zigzag shape; and an indoor pool”

I can't come up with an excuse for a business not paying its taxes. If one doesn't like the tax regime, one shouldn't start a business. Nobody gets special treatment.

Perhaps if the state was less hungry for the fruits of our labor, this ice cream shop would still be open. Or not. Either way, I enjoy the counterpoint to widespread recent emotive populist blather. We're way above the optimum size of government if the goal is better lives for the most people.