In uk.railway Nick twisted the electrons to say:
It would seem to me dangerously irresponsible to run a health service,
or a welfare system, on the hope that random members of the general

One could argue it's dangerously irresponsible to run a welfare system at
all ...

public will contribute funds to it out of the goodness of their heart.
I mean, those members of the public who have a social conscience and
are relatively well-off probably would, but you can't rely on it.

And yet charities like the RNLI actively resist the idea of state
financing ... I guess this means deaths at sea increa

State funding through taxes means you compel people who can afford it
into giving money to support the health service and welfare, and to my
mind, that's the way it should be if you want to guarantee the income
as much as practically possible.

Any sensible charity presumably budgets for expected changes in both
income and expenditure ... Something we've yet to see any UK government
being any good at.

If you don't like paying tax, remind yourself that you might find
yourself in a position where you will be the beneficiary of the tax
system one day.

OTOH, if I hadn't been forced to pay those taxes I would've been better
off and would therefore have been less likely to need the to beg the
government to give back to me some some of the money they forcibly took
from me ...
--
These opinions might not even be mine ...
Let alone connected with my employer ...