the middle class are wildly undertaxed in america relative to the wealthy people and the middle class in europe and this is where the democratic kind of lie with the tax policy falls apart. to get the goodies, the social programs of the scandanavian country pay akin to the wealthy people. if you go to the countries, they kick in at 70, 80,000. and we have single digit tax rates under a middle class tax range and the other way they do it through a very high consumption tax, a vat tax, effectively 25% tax on all goods and services, highly paid by and that's how you pay for the social programs, to deny that as a democrat is to ignore how it works. it can work if you can handle high unemployment and low gdp