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> And I’m happy about it. High taxes but a lot of bang for the buck. Actually, the per-capita taxes in the EU are about the same as the per-capita taxes in the
by anamax 17y ago
> And I’m happy about it. High taxes but a lot of bang for the buck.
Actually, the per-capita taxes in the EU are about the same as the per-capita taxes in the US. (That's dollars in taxes collected per person, not rates.)
There appear to be two differences - the per-capita GDP is much higher in the US (we have more money after taxes) and folks in the EU get better services for their money.
The latter suggests that giving the US govt more money isn't likely to be a good idea.
- jacquesm 17y agoThe biggest single reason for that is the amount of money that the US spends on their 'defense', it is much higher than European countries on a per-capita basis.
- anamax 17y ago> The biggest single reason for that is the amount of money that the US spends on their 'defense', it is much higher than European countries on a per-capita basis. The "about the same" numbers are federal spending only, of which about 15% is defense for the US. US state and local govts spend a bit less than the federal govt, but more than enough to swamp the defense numbers and push the per-capita tax burden in the US well over that of the typical EU country, where the "not national" govts don't spend nearly as much. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/ http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/
- anamax 17y agoNote that there's some double-counting going on. Cities and states get a lot of money from the federal govt. That money is counted as both federal and state/local spending.