The government takes taxes in the form of extortion and coercion, under duress. Of course, so long as businesses are able to pass the cost of taxes levied on to the consumer, they will. The government, as the Founding Fathers warned us, has far outgrown where it should be. And the citizens have not only allowed it, but facilitated and encouraged it.
Once again, as Bastiat said, "the American experiment will last only until the people discover they can vote themselves largess from the public coffers." That's what happened. The people, at least some of them, continually vote themselves largess from the public coffers by choosing to vote for people who will give it to them. The illusion that people can live at the expense of others is still widely held.
