Me: Now that I am paying taxes, I would prefer the government use the money on an Avreich somewhere so that he can sit and learn and not on some study that tries to learn the eating habits of the Playtapus off the coast of Australia.
SJS: There are plenty of good uses for our tax money – repairing our roads, educating our children etc…but my tax money is NOT there to support people learning in Kollel. That is what my maaser money is for. And taking advantage of the system (especially in such a bad economy), is going to break the system.
Let me rephrase what I said. There are portions of my taxes that are earmarked for all sorts of causes. The portion earmarked for “social services”, I would prefer be made larger while the portion allocated to things like studying the eating habits of the Platypus be scrapped. I’d much rather fund someone sitting and learning than some scientist out in the middle of nowhere looking at a Platypus down its lunch.