Approximately 20% of my paycheck goes to taxes of various kinds. If I paid no taxes, here's some of the things for which I would have more money:

• A larger, nicer place to live.
• Eating out more often.
• Very nice bottles of wine.
• Toys: a new MacBook, a big flatscreen, an intense sound system.
• Travel travel travel.

Here's what I get instead:

• Government.

The reaganistas, of course, say this is exactly what is wrong with our entire system. I say this is what is right. Do I want to go to Australia, get a MacBook, enjoy breakfast out every Saturday? Of course I do. My list was not a rhetorical device. I do want more money. I also want roads on which to ride my bike, police and fire when in need, bus service, health care, a national defense, proper and correct funding for the Coast Guard (in which my younger son serves), a properly run Veterans Affairs Dept (for him and his older brother, serving in the Oregon National Guard), and more. I want someone to make sure my food is safe. I want someone to make sure planes do not hit each other in mid-air. I want a safety net for those who are victims of other citizens, of the economy, of their parents' stupidity. I want building inspectors (and I want them to do their jobs, which means I want inspectors for the inspectors and standards by which they all work).

I want a lot, and most of what I want is not going to make anyone any money, so guess what? If government doesn't do it, it ain't gonna get done. Where's the profit in maintaining a road, traffic signals, laws and rules? Unless a company has the right to charge for use of its road, this is not something any business is going to take on, no matter how bright and creative their entrepreneurial geniuses.

But the excellent part of taxes is that for the hundreds of dollars I pay each year, I get huge benefits in return. It costs millions to build and maintain city streets. If my contribution towards that expense was taken as a fraction, it would be nearer zero than any other number. I received a very good education in public schools. The cost to my parents, again as a percentage of the overall price tag? Almost nothing. The same is true of virtually every benefit (and potential benefit) we derive from the various governments under which we live. Yes, the overall ticket seems large, but what we get in return simply dwarfs that cost.

When I was hit by a car in December, it was the prompt arrival and on-task performance of a police officer that confirmed the facts of the matter: I was not at fault and the driver had made a dangerous turn. As a result, my medical and other costs are fully covered. And this was a simple case. Had the driver turned out to be unhinged in some way and was threatening me (as I lay on the ground with broken ribs and a punctured lung), the officer would have defended me and others with his life if necessary.

The price tag for that, please? That is the ultimate governmental contribution.

Pointing out waste and fraud is a bogus argument. Private enterprise is far more wasteful and self-indulgement than government could ever hope to be. The man who owns my business can take whatever profits and other benefits from the company he chooses. If he wants to run the business into the ground for his own benefit, he can. He can probably do so safely skirting a lot of laws, if he has the right legal assistance. People who try to pull that shit in government rarely get away with it. Bad programs do exist, and badly designed policies do cause damage. Government has a unique ability to cause harm with its failures: Katrina, Iraq, the housing bubble that went unregulated.

Yet it is precisely the ability of government to fail so spectacularly that highlights how successful most government is. For all our current problems, we have stability and, more pertinently, we have the structure in place to overcome the problems we currently face. The billions of dollars in stimulus money can be plugged in immediately because of government. No one has to start a company. No one has to develop a business plan. The money goes right to existing agencies and programs and gets plugged in immediately. And we know even before they begin the work what the results will be. The promised outcomes of stimulus spending were not guesswork: they were accurate predictions of what was going to happen. We know which buildings will be retrofitted, how many workers that will take, the amount of spending on supplies, etc. These are known factors easily available, and while a business can do the same, a business also does one extra thing: It tacks on profit. And when the payment is coming from the government, especially the federal government, that profit tends to be large.

There is no profit margin in government, which reduces the price tag significantly. Of course this requires oversight and ethical responsibility to work, but the same is true in the private sector if gouging and cheating (usually failure to meet necessary standards of quality) are not to occur. Government oversight is more easily accomplished, especially as we move into an era where more and more of what government is doing is made public via the internet.

What I love about paying my taxes is that it's not a taking but an investment. I pay a few hundred bucks, and I get billions in return. Roads, safety, standards, protection, all sorts of goodies. I get an entire library system. I get parks. I get a city, state and nation in which I love living and of which I have an ownership stake. Even with my favorite all-time corporation, Apple, I don't get a fraction of that. Only government makes my money go so far, for so much that I value.