1. What Germany does is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not the US middle class is paying more because US plutocrats are cleverly shielding some of their gains from taxation.
2. If you want welfare state acceptance by all remove means testing and have it available to all. That's how it's done in Europe. Often times the public service is superior to anything the private sector can offer so even the rich support it.
Which only goes to show that the rich in America are far richer than their counterparts in other well-developed countries. In terms of inequality, American ratios are closer to those found in straight-up kleptocracies. When people talk about the bananafication of the republic, this is what they mean.
1. What Germany does is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not the US middle class is paying more because US plutocrats are cleverly shielding some of their gains from taxation.
2. If you want welfare state acceptance by all remove means testing and have it available to all. That's how it's done in Europe. Often times the public service is superior to anything the private sector can offer so even the rich support it.