Picture of the Day: Taxes in Comparison

From the New York Times with an accompanying article about taxes and services.  Not sure we want to be Italy, yikes, but Germany always makes an interesting comparator: high income country with a humming economy and yet a cripplingly high tax burden.  Go figure.

My take has always been that the focus on the tax burden is wrong, the focus should be on how the money is spent and how government services can enhance growth prospects through things like education.  One of the big conundrums of the US is that a lot of money is being spent on healthcare - much more than other industrialized countries - with worse outcomes.  Which is the same as saying we are spending money inefficiently.