I'm well into the ~16% mentioned in this article, and you hit exactly on the reason why. Other countries may pay 10-20% more for their governments, but they are

I'm well into the ~16% mentioned in this article, and you hit exactly on the reason why. Other countries may pay 10-20% more for their governments, but they are getting 100-200% more value from it. We pay 4-10x the price of comparable first world countries for basic infrastructure like water, roads, and transit. We already pay more per capita for Medicare than most countries spend on universal health care. 15% of my earnings immediately go into a social welfare system that will be insolvent before I'm 50 years old. And even though our military has the best technology and funding in the world, we can't win wars against AK47s, IEDs, and Toyota Hiluxes. Paying taxes in the US is like throwing cash into a dumpster fire. The sad thing is that due to tax rules on expat earnings, I can't just vote with my feet, I have to vote with my citizenship. That may not be the end of the world (I'm already on the path to dual citizenship with an EU country), but its a bit like getting a divorce because your husband spends too much on beer: it has to get really bad before it gets to the point of divorce. And for me, it's almost there.