Are we ready to have this conversation?

There are few words that cause as much collective hives as "taxes." Say it and, within seconds, witness an existential crisis: "We pay too much!", "The state steals from us!", "And then it's all just jobs!" There's something Machiavellian about this national outburst. And I understand. But there's also something profoundly naive. Because, let's be honest, if there's one thing that truly unites us as a society—besides our love of coffee and hatred of VAR—it's the convenient forgetfulness that, since birth, we've been surrounded by things paid for with... taxes.

The debate over the tax burden is once again on the agenda. After all, it's easier to blame the IRS for bank balances than to reflect on how we can make the government more efficient.

Yes, I'm sorry to ruin the myth of the self-made citizen, but childbirth in a public hospital, vaccinations at the health center, free textbooks, the road that took us to school, and even the teacher who taught us that Camões is not an app—all of this was paid for with everyone's taxes. And, I repeat, everyone's. It wasn't magic. All of this exists because taxes exist.

However, the way taxation is discussed in Portugal today seems like something out of a sketch: "Taxes should go down now! Urgently! Quickly!" they say. And I ask: what next? Do we cut spending? Do we reform the system? Or do we simply start paying the bills in full? Because the question can't just be "how to cut taxes," but rather "how to make the state more efficient so that the taxes we pay actually make sense." Now, that would be a truly public service debate.

Over the years, we've confused investment with expenditure and reform with cuts. Healthcare is an excellent—perhaps the best—example of this. Year after year, we've increased the healthcare budget, yet waiting times for appointments and surgeries continue to fill newspapers and waiting rooms. Why? Because for too long, it was thought the problem was a lack of money, not organization. Throwing money at an inefficient system is like filling a leaky bucket: no matter how hard you try, you'll never be able to fill it.

But what went wrong? The reform went wrong. The courage to look within public administration and recognize that services require more than budgets failed. They need objectives, goals, metrics, and, well, a sense of urgency. Productivity incentive systems? Great idea. Rewarding teams that manage their resources well? Sounds sensible. Measuring performance? Innovative, almost revolutionary in today's world. Accountability and efficiency are not enemies of the Welfare State. They are its best allies. Because a wasteful State, no matter how fair it may be, ceases to be ethical.

There is, therefore, a serious generational failure in the way we are educating the younger generations about the role of taxes in society. We talk to them about rights, but forget to talk to them about duties. We show them the services, but hide the bill. We create consumers of the State, but not citizens conscious of its maintenance. And so, year after year, we perpetuate the cycle: we demand more, pay reluctantly, and protest with our hearts, but with little reason.

The curious thing is that many young Portuguese say they want to leave the country because of the "tax burden." But then they choose to emigrate to countries like Sweden or Germany – where the tax burden is, imagine, even higher. But after all, what's there that we don't have here? Free public transport that arrives on time, waiting lines that don't last three winters, accessible and quality public universities, and services that operate with an almost boring predictability. In other words, in these countries, people don't protest about paying taxes... because it's clear where they're going.

Here, the feeling is different: we pay a lot, see little, and are often treated with indifference for services that are supposedly ours. The result? A culture of distrust in the State is created, as if the problem lay in the very concept of contributions, not in their management. The most serious consequence of this? A generation growing up viewing taxes as a robbery rather than a collective investment.

And this is where we need to make a shift. It's not the amount of taxes that's at stake—it's their translation into quality public goods. We need a Public Administration that sees itself as an engine of development, not a stuck gear. We need public leaders with the training, vision, and courage to reform. And we urgently need a national pact for efficiency that will restore our confidence that contributing is worthwhile.

Because, truth be told, no one likes paying for mediocre service. But no one minds investing when they feel they're building something that's theirs. Taxes aren't the villain. Waste, that's the real thief.