"Well why can't we just be a free market economy with lots of social programs then?"
Because communism always comes next. You've created an apparatus where the state is seen by too much of the public as the solution to all problems, and given it the power to take and redistribute at any level. It's only a matter of time before they do. Those countries did not begin with 40%+ tax rates, and had that been the pitch they would have balked at the first mention. But that's where they've slid to since it's inception. The US is no different, we're just less advanced in this slide to communism.
'Free' education and 'free' retirement becomes 'free' healthcare, and 'free' housing, and 'free' food, and 'free' transportation, until there's nothing left that isn't "free" at which point you're working for the government, and being given what they determine you deserve, and you wake up to realize the more that is 'free', the less that YOU are. You've become a serf and traded your Totalitarian Morarchy for a Totalitarian Oligarchy and you consul yourself because at least this tyrant is a supposedly benevolent one... but then why does the Tyrant live so well and you not? We're all essential, but the political class moreso, all equal but your rulers moreso, and all qualified to rule, but you're assigned to the factories while the rulers families are assigned to rule.
"Well why can't we just be a free market economy with lots of social programs then?"
Because communism always comes next. You've created an apparatus where the state is seen by too much of the public as the solution to all problems, and given it the power to take and redistribute at any level. It's only a matter of time before they do. Those countries did not begin with 40%+ tax rates, and had that been the pitch they would have balked at the first mention. But that's where they've slid to since it's inception. The US is no different, we're just less advanced in this slide to communism.
'Free' education and 'free' retirement becomes 'free' healthcare, and 'free' housing, and 'free' food, and 'free' transportation, until there's nothing left that isn't "free" at which point you're working for the government, and being given what they determine you deserve, and you wake up to realize the more that is 'free', the less that YOU are. You've become a serf and traded your Totalitarian Morarchy for a Totalitarian Oligarchy and you consul yourself because at least this tyrant is a supposedly benevolent one... but then why does the Tyrant live so well and you not? We're all essential, but the political class moreso, all equal but your rulers moreso, and all qualified to rule, but you're assigned to the factories while the rulers families are assigned to rule.