This is all covered in an excellent podcast by Planet Money
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/epis...
> Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa.
> In one of its provisions, the bill makes it illegal for the IRS to create its own online system of tax filing. Companies like Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block have lobbied for years to block the IRS from creating such a system. If the tax agency created its own program, which would be similar to programs other developed countries have, it would threaten the industry’s profits.
- higher standards of living
- longer life expectancies
- better healthcare
- higher taxes, but the money is used more efficiently and for better results than on mass incarceration or the largest military-industrial complex
- very easy tax payment processes
Taxes aren't universally "bad": fire departments, police departments, roads, schools. And guess what? That's "socialism." So is Social Security and USPS. The myth of anarchistic hyperindividualism (libertarianism) is a self-delusion because there are benefits to common infrastructure no individual could build themselves alone.
PS: Why don't most Americans know how bad they have it? Is it their lack of passports or lack of honesty in paying attention outside of their filter bubble?
I think it's both, now, but I think that the 'no passports' thing has been a factor for a while.
When I was in middle school I wondered why many (white, middle-class, etc) Americans only speak English when so many people from Europe, etc speak several (or at least can get by).
It dawned on me one day that you could start on one coast and drive clear across the continent without ever needing a second language - it's all USA the whole way.
So yeah - much like the language thing there's no real exposure to anything other than our country.