I'm not certain if it's due to the special brand of American self-reliance or if it's due to a higher efficiency of tax spending but, while no one likes paying taxes, in most places people can see the effects of their taxes and end up spending less when that spending is collectively managed than if everyone tried to do it themselves.

I don't know if you work in HR but if you compare Canada and US taxes Canadian taxes are clearly higher... but when you look at cost of hiring the multiplier companies pay to provide a given level of effective income to employees it is far lower in Canada. While the taxes we see are higher, the taxes the US invisibly foists on individuals end up adding up to a much larger number (as well as the US engaging extensively in employer-side taxation which "hides" the tax bill).

It wouldn't hurt, either, to tone down the hyperbole.

Do you have a source on EU residents paying a “heroic percentage” of their income?

Everytime I’ve gotten actual numbers from people the total tax burden has been roughly equivalent between the US and the EU, but people confuse the different buckets it comes from as the EU has taxes like VAT and the US will be split between federal,state,local,property,sales, etc