Yep. Whenever Americans talk about voting Democrat and getting all these great government programs, I like to point out how taxes work in countries where this happens.
They really don't get it.
My Salary is $112,000.
I get paid a tad over $3000, twice a month. That's after everything: federal taxes, state taxes, life insurance and medical insurance (which the company I work for takes out).
State sales tax is 6%. The mortgage on my house (~2000 sq feet counting finished and unfinished) is about $1000/month, counting the property tax (which the mortgage company pays for me via escrow out of the $1000/month).
So I get about $60,000 per month after taxes and housing to do whatever I want with (not counting any bonuses or refunds -- I do make back a few thousand from tax refunds, mostly due to the mortgage interest writeoff).
I probably average about $1500/month on bills, food and general entertainment (nights out at the bar, restaurants, etc) and so forth, so still about $42,000 left over per year. Which seems about right. No car payment cause I had enough in the bank to buy it outright.
This is just a straight up no-shit assessment of my finances.
No way in hell I could do this in most (if any) of Europe. Germany would be hitting my income at 42%. And then the VAT is 19%.
I've spot checked other countries and some are worse. Belgium is fucking insane.
I don't know how Euros let things get so bad. I guess the bright side is you get pretty well taken care of by the government but "it takes money to make money" and you don't get much chance to accumulate anything.
I'm about 5 years into my mortgage and close to paying it off. At that time I could rent the place out and buy a second home with the rent from the first one paying the mortgage on the second one. By the time I retire I could just be living on rental property income. Assuming I don't come up with some better investment.
All because the American government lets me keep most of my money.