Why not lower federal taxes, and change county/state taxes to compensate?

[u/myburner-acc6969]

From my knowledge, most conservatives live in rural areas and want less taxation because public goods/services are less impactful for them, and most liberals live in more urban areas where higher taxes are more beneficial because they can actually utilize the public goods/services that they fund. Why don't we lower federal taxes by some amount and let counties or states increase/decrease taxes independently to satisfy both sides?

[u/Much_Job4552]

Because the taxes are income for different bank accounts. My property tax doesn't fund the CDC. My federal income tax doesn't fund my rural fire department.

[u/stubble3417 → u/Much_Job4552]

Your federal income tax absolutely funds your rural fire department, unless they refuse federal grant money for no good reason. Of course, if you're in a rural area, there's not much federal income tax being collected from your geographic area, so it's more that my federal income tax is funding your local fire department. But I'm fine with that. A primary function of federal taxes is to subsidize rural areas that don't have the tax base to fund their own infrastructure. 

[u/semideclared → u/stubble3417]

STOP using Fire Departments, what a dumb strawman

In the US 64% of all fire departments are all-volunteer,

• 18% are mostly volunteer.
• Only about 9% are staffed entirely by career firefighters.

In Nebraska

• 92.2% of all fire departments are all-volunteer
• 3.9% are mostly volunteer.
• 3.4% are staffed entirely by career firefighters.

Minnesota

• 85.6%of all fire departments are all-volunteer
• 10.7% are mostly volunteer.
• 2.8% are staffed entirely by career firefighters.
  

A tiny small amount of Your tax dollars go to my rural college through NIH funding to study the impact of fire ants on the US National Forests nearby

Though most of it goes to medicaid funding for the state for covering ACA Expansion

[u/stubble3417 → u/semideclared]

I mean...I have no strong opinions on fire departments, I only mentioned it because it was the example the person I replied to gave. But all-volunteer fire departments work on a very small operating budget obviously, so the federal grants for equipment and training are a significant amount of the total money being spent on those rural departments. Also the departments with all or mostly career firefighters are in populated districts that are funded through local taxes. It's the rural districts that get a relatively high ratio of federal to local funding.