I definitely would not give up amazon for free education, health care, etc... Those socialists implementations come at a very high cost. Yes, our current system is not well, but it's better than the government taking 60% of my earned income.
You might get properly funded roads; that is if they don't squander it between the time they lie and promise to use it for that and when it comes time to do road repair.
I saw this old blog post recently, supporting your assertion: https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-r...
Basically, underground rail construction in US costs much more per kilometer than in other countries, and people in the comment section claim that the same holds true for other types of infrastructure construction, like bridges and highways.
If Germany's tax rate starts at 40% from 40,000 EUR and California from $200,000; those are not equivalent.
My marginal tax rate in the UK is 45% but I take home 75% of what I invoice.
The max personal tax rate is 47.2%, but that includes a 8.2% pension contribution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
It's hard to directly compare though, since we have really high excise taxes/VAT, especially for things like cars.
But I believe your employer pays an amount equal to about 20% of your gross income as pension fund payments. I don't know if USA has similar "hidden" costs which makes direct comparison of grass salary difficult.
"making the total Social Security tax 12.4% of wages and the total Medicare tax 2.9%."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Insurance_Contributions...
Yes, there's a cost, but tax rates in the US aren't ultra low compared to every other country in the world.
It's not so much how much money you spend, but what you spend it on that is the real difference.
Add your health care costs to that 12% and I think you'll find Canada has the cheaper rate, and you still get to take advantage of many (not all) of the same credits a typical American can.
You're also forgetting that the US doesn't have a national sales tax or high taxes on gasoline.
I would agree that the highest tax states in the US aren't that different than the lowest tax states in Canada (income tax only), my own person experience tells me that the US, on average, has a much lower tax burden than countries like Canada. And many jobs pay a higher salary.
Also the US brackets kick in at higher incomes. In Canada the highest bracket (29%) is over $136K. In the US, the highest bracket is 35%, but it doesn't kick-in until you earn more than $375K per year.
I easily have more disposable income in the US than I did in Canada, even after taking into account insurance costs. Even living in a high-tax US state.