Passage 2 So why are most people in denial about the beneficial roles that government plays in their lives? There are several answers. First, most Americans have become so used to the benefits of government that they simply take them for granted. Benefits that are provided reliably for long periods of time-such as clean water and a stable currency system-tend to fade into the background and to not be considered benefits at all. They disappear from our consciousness. Our failure to notice or appreciate what government does for us also has to do with the unique and peculiar nature of many government benefits. The benefits we get from paying our taxes are usually not immediate, and they are often not particularly tangible either. They can be remote and elusive. This is easy to see if we contrast government benefits with the benefits we receive from exchanges in the marketplace. When we go to the store, we hand over our money and immediately get something very concrete in return-a candy bar, a blouse, some groceries. This kind of exchange is very satisfying, we see what we get for our money right away. Not so with many of the exchanges we have with our governments. We shell out money for our taxes, but what we gain in return is frequently delayed or remote. For instance, we pay our local government to treat our sewage, but the environmental payoffs may not be immediately obvious to us. When we later go fishing or swimming in our local lake or river--waters whose purity depends upon adequate sewage treatment-we probably do not see this enjoyable experience as a result of our sewer tax. When benefits are remote like this, it is hard to make the connections between them and the taxes we pay. Government benefits are also different because they are often less tangible than the goods we get from a store.
These benefits frequently take the form not of the presence of something, but of the absence of something.
Think of it this way: much of the job of government in our lives is to ensure that bad things don't happen to us.
We pay taxes so that our homes don't get burgled, and our food doesn't make us sick, our banks don't fail, and our bridges don't collapse. In other words, often when people in government are doing their job right-nothing happens. No wonder no one notices. So while we really do get a lot for our taxes, we often get it in a form that is largely invisible to us. This is one of the reasons why we too easily fall for the illusion that government is doing nothing for us. A central idea of Passage 2 is that
A people unfairly compare the worth of purchased goods
with the worth of government benefits.
B people tend to overlook the connection between paying
taxes and receiving some ongoing government benefits.
C
more people take advantage of government spending
today than in the past.
D
government benefits are more reliable today than they
once were.