Steven Hill's new book "Europe's Promise: Why the European Way Is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age" has a message we should find very encouraging. The European Union (EU) is the world's largest and most competitive economy, and most of those living in it are wealthier, healthier, and happier than most Americans. Europeans work shorter hours, have a greater say in how their employers behave, receive lengthy paid vacations and paid parental leave, can rely on guaranteed paid pensions, have free or extremely inexpensive comprehensive and preventative healthcare, enjoy free or extremely inexpensive educations from preschool through college, impose only half the per-capita environmental damage of Americans, endure a fraction of the violence found in the United States, imprison a fraction of the prisoners locked up here, and benefit from democratic representation, engagement, and civil liberties unimagined in the land where we're teased that the world hates us for our rather mediocre "freedoms." Europe even offers a model foreign policy, bringing neighboring nations toward democracy by holding out the prospect of EU membership, while we drive other nations away from good governance at great expense of blood and treasure.
Of course, this would all be good news, if not for the extreme and horrible danger of higher taxes! Working less and living longer with less illness, a cleaner environment, a better education, more cultural enjoyments, paid vacations, and governments that respond better to the public — that all sounds nice, but the reality involves the ultimate evil of higher taxes! Or does it?
As Hill points out, Europeans do pay higher income taxes, but they generally pay lower state, local, property, and social security taxes. They also pay those higher income taxes out of a larger paycheck. And what Europeans keep in earned income they do not have to spend on healthcare or college or job training or numerous other expenses that are hardly optional but that we seem intent on celebrating our privilege to pay for individually.
If we pay roughly as much as Europeans in taxes, why do we additionally have to pay for everything we need on our own? Why don't our taxes pay for our needs? The primary reason is that so much of our tax money goes to wars and the military.
We also funnel it to the wealthiest among us through corporate tax breaks and bailouts.
"A few years ago, an American acquaintance of mine who lives in Sweden told me that he and his Swedish wife were in New York City and, quite by chance, ended up sharing a limousine to the theatre district with then-U.S. Senator John Breaux from Louisiana and his wife. Breaux, a conservative, anti-tax Democrat, asked my acquaintance about Sweden and swaggeringly commented about 'all those taxes the Swedes pay,' to which this American replied, 'The problem with Americans and their taxes is that we get nothing for them.' He then went on to tell Breaux about the comprehensive level of services and benefits that Swedes receive in return for their taxes. 'If Americans knew what Swedes receive for their taxes, we would probably riot,' he told the senator. The rest of the ride to the theater district was unsurprisingly quiet."
