Took the time to add it all up. Between federal,state,city income tax, sales tax, property tax, excise taxes, healthcare (which European taxes pay for already) premiums; I pay 53% of my income in some form of taxes. I'm not sure if that's less taxes than in Europe, but I'm pretty sure they don't pay 50%+ of their pay towards tax.

Incredible. I wonder what you're doing differently. My rate is around 30% and I live in San Francisco and pay ~9% to the state. Like most of my 150,000 coworkers, I pay ~0% out of pocket for healthcare. Maybe that's the main difference?