They are going to reach into your pocket no matter what.

They aren't even in your pocket, relatively speaking. At the local level, you're a drop in the bucket beside the big land owners and corporate industries. At the state level, you're even less relevant. At the federal level, between intentional trade and deficit spending, you might as well not exist.

The joke of modern taxation is how it's largely unnecessary at the individual level. If the state simply planned it's economy and managed it's natural resources, everyone could do the Alaska thing where they pay you to live there.

California hosts multiple trillionaires, ffs. Nobody with an income under seven figures needs to pay a dime to support that state's spending plan.