> ...[The State is] now taking an average of 57% off our salary...
Hello. USian here.
Looking at my taxes from last year, The State took 35% of what I earned.
I'd gladly pay 22% more if I got
* Healthcare that I'm not (or am hardly) billed for using and don't have to pay extra every month for [0]
* Mandatory six weeks minimum paid vacation
* Actual employment contracts that mean my employer can't up and say "Whoopsidoodle, this is your three month notice that we're requiring you to stop working from home and either move across the continent to sit your ass in one of our offices or quit. Severance? What severance?!?"; they actually have to justify upending the lives of their workers
* Governments that diswant to waste enormous amounts of money on pointless decades-long occupations of foreign nations
[0] In my state, bottom-end publicly-available health insurance (where I'm expected to pay ~7,000 USD out of pocket before anything is covered) costs ~500 USD a month and is expected to double in cost soon. [1]
[1] The current cost of the health insurance combined with the deductable raises my effective tax burden to 38%. The expected doubling in monthly cost raises it to 40%. [2]
[2] Yes, one typically gets USian health insurance through one's employer. The big appeal of the European system is that if you're unemployed (whether by choice, injury, or the cumulative injuries of advanced age), you don't have to pay out the ass for basic life-sustaining services. I think wonks call this the "social safety net".