Gotta take it all in all unless you're just demagoguin'

Jonathan Chait argues- quite rightly- that you can't talk about government as if the only one there is is in Washington:

We have made the decision to divide our government between federal, state and local levels. The latter two are going to tend toward regressive tax policy (because, among other things, it's easy for rich people to move across the county or state line if they're getting taxed at a higher rate.) Conservatives have driven a discussion about how the poorer half of the country has gotten off easy, and isn't paying anything for government. That statement relies on ignoring not only payroll taxes but also state and local levies. If we have decided as a nation that some functions of government will be handled at the state and local level, then state and local taxes have to be considered part of the cost of government. Pretending that federal policy is national policy is a way of making national policy look a lot more liberal than it really is.