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When people talk about the burden of government programs that clearly don't benefit all, most, or even necessarily very many of the taxpayers on the hook for them, you often see their costs calculated in per capita terms across the whole population. Put that way, they seem laughably tiny, not worth even thinking about. Public broadcasting, for example, costs just $1.37 per citizen each year—far less than you pay to avoid getting kicked out of Starbucks every day.But money is fungible, so you can conceptualize the relationship between what you pay in taxes and any given government program or expenditure in a far more infuriating way. Consider, on this magic day of civic responsibility, that every penny of your federal income tax burden this year (and that of any number of other poor suckers with your same income) is going to some relatively small and insignificant government program . . .