Liberal democracy is a vile anti-democratic institution (and I don't necessarily even think that direct democracy is the best or only method of horizontal, anti-authoritarian decision making without extra information; i.e. upholding democracy as the be-all end-all of "all power to all the people" is itself a lack of imagination). Almost every imperialist power today is a liberal-democratic state. Liberal democracy is a resounding success at what it is designed to do, which is oppress the proletariat and entrench capitalist hegemony while giving the superficial appearance of proletarian representation to gullible liberals.
And no actually, proletarians should not be paying a single goddamn fucking penny to capitalists or their demonic governments as long as they use our money to destroy us, doom our ecology, and just barely maintain the social services or infrastructure statists claim that these institutions are supposed to provide, which incidentally, half the bourgeoisie doesn't even want their governments to even give the workers enough crumbs off the table to buy proletarians' compliance!