The United States Is Not as Low Tax As It Seems

Eduardo Porter had a good piece noting that the United States is an outlier among rich countries in that it takes in far less tax revenue each year than other wealthy countries. As a result, it provides less in public services like health care and higher education. However, this is an incomplete story.

Tax collections are only one way in which the government pays for goods and services. There are three other important mechanisms:

1) patent and copyright monopolies;

2) tax expenditures, and;

3...