Yeah, and employees in Italy and Scandinavian countries get a metric butt-ton more government services for their money. Not to turn this into an argument about

Yeah, and employees in Italy and Scandinavian countries get a metric butt-ton more government services for their money. Not to turn this into an argument about what government should be doing; don't care, irrelevant. The point is simply that you do get a lot for giving up ~50%+ of your paycheck in those countries. Here, you just give up whatever you give up (your figure doesn't take into account sales taxes, excise taxes, use taxes, property taxes, etc.)