> We don't see Swedes and Finns leaving their countries over taxes. The Swedes and Finns still in Sweden and Finland are descended from folks who didn't move t

> We don't see Swedes and Finns leaving their countries over taxes. The Swedes and Finns still in Sweden and Finland are descended from folks who didn't move to the US because they were unhappy about something. Americans, for the most part, descended from folks who left somewhere because they were unhappy about something. Which reminds me, as Mankiw showed, the per-capita tax burden in dollars in the US is fairly close to that of European countries. However, it's a smaller fraction of GDP because the US per-capita GDP is higher. In other words, Americans pay about the same and have more. It's unclear why changing to pay the same and have less is a good thing. And, since we're already paying the same and getting less, the whole "but look at what they get for their taxes" argument fails. http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2010/03/taxes-per-person.html http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2010/03/taxes-per-person.html http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=4626 http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=4626