"Are you saying that taxes are theft?"
No. A currency-issuing government uses taxation to drive the demand for its currency and to control inflation. Without a pin to a commodity (gold standard) or debt in a foreign currency denomination, such a government can create whatever currency it needs without constraint from revenue. I'm saying that a government that claws back all its spending from the private sector in a misguided attempt to "pay for" that spending (balanced budget) leaves nothing in the private sector to store value from commerce with the government.
Since every dollar is created via "debt" any "revenue" of the issuing government must first satisfy that debt and cannot be recycled to pay for anything. All spending of the federal government is via "new money" creation and the deficit is simply a tracking entity that informs of additions to the money supply. A surplus in the government's sector reduces the money supply in the private sector.
"I was rather under the impression thT taxes were an agreed to payment by we-the-people to a bunch of administrators to do the things that make our lives easier."
The government mandates tax payments in the currency it alone can create. This creates a demand for that currency which allows the government to provision itself in both resources and labor it needs without a separate revenue stream. We are free to use whatever currency we wish until the tax man shows up with his hand out. At that time we need a source of the currency the government demands to avoid serious penalties.
The easiest route is to denominate all of our commerce in the currency the government accepts for payment of taxes, but the currency must be made available to us by the issuing government before we can pay taxes or lend it back via bonds.
Deficit spending by the issuing government is the only source of the currency that doesn't require repayment by the private sector. It satisfied the payment obligation with its provisioning of the government and the government is constitutionally authorized to create the currency as needed.
The government can only "repay" the debt by removing all currency from the private sector via taxation, so that is a fool's errand from the start and should not be part of any realistic conversation. Spending too little results in unemployment and spending too much, or at the wrong time, can result in inflation. The purpose of taxation, once demand for the currency is established, is to allow needed spending without creating inflation. Obviously, requiring much smarter people than we have been sending to Congress recently.
