Funny things like this makes someone thinks that the leaders are just spending the money as they seem it fit whether its impacting directly to the citizens or not. I wonder the amount of funds that would that would have been expended in the research and finding of energy in another planet that we all know we are not going whether now or in the future. However, to say all of the money used for all of this is only from taxes would be wrong. Government generate money from other sources through import and export sources. For countries that have advantages in certain commercial products tend to sell abroad for huge amount of money while those with the right amount of population tend to be import dependent and generate money on that. Tax is really not optional and by definition, its not commensurate to what you see as some expenditure would bring direct effect whereas others would bring indirect and long term benefits.