Ask a lot of software engineers what they think about European-style salaries and taxes to pay for a welfare state.

I would be very happy to do so if we had working infrastructure, education, and health care not coupled to the generosity of your employer.

Isn’t it the case anyway that if you add state, federal, local, property, capital gains, and sales taxes, add the money that you and your employer pays for healthcare, that you’re basically paying slightly more in taxes all-in?

Huh. Most software engineers I come across am at worst ambivalent and at best highly desiring of unions.

What do you think “welfare state” means? Do you think “European-style” salaries solely occur because “European-style” people, for instance, have a different healthcare system?