Why do you assume that the hordes of Canadians who migate to the US for work are stupid? There are about three times as many Canadians living in the US than Americans living in Canada. The US has about nine times as many people as Canada, so a Canadian is about 27 times more likely to move to the US than an American is to move to Canada. Are they all unable to calculate correctly whether doing so benefits them?
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My very narrow observation based on being an American living in Scandinavia and trying to explain to my brother who's very red-blooded American why I believe the high taxes are a net benefit is that Americans (speaking very generally, of course) are hung up on money in the bank account over basically every other consideration. So when an American with that mindset looks at a place like Canada or Scandinavia, they'll nope right out of that because there's no way it'll put as much money into their bank account.
I, on the other hand, think that high taxes end up benefitting everyone through greater services for those down on their luck which seems to translate to less desperation, less resentment, less classism, less crime. Basically overall far better peace of mind for all involved even though getting filthy rich isn't as much a thing. It's totally possible there are other circumstances at play here like the relative homogeneity of Scandinavian countries relative to the US so this is just a working hypothesis at the moment.
Theticket issue that comes to mind with social safety nets is healthcare and no country comes even close to spending as much on healthcare per capital as the US. We're talking double the amount spent by nearly every other country. Our issues do not seem to be rooted in a lack of funding.
>I, on the other hand, think that high taxes end up benefitting everyone through greater services for those down on their luck which seems to translate to less desperation, less resentment, less classism, less crime.
That's a perfectly reasonable decision.
That said, far more Scandinavians have calculated that they would rather have the US approach than the other way around. Whether on an absolute or (especially) per capita basis, far more Swedes and Norwegians move to the US than follow your lead and move to Scandinavia.
Your argument made more sense when it was between two basically identical cultures (America, Canada). How many Americans (who largely only speak English) are going to leave the country to live in another one?
But the per-capita ratios in favor of people from a given country moving to the US, versus Americans moving to said country, are massive regardless of country and regardless of whether that country speaks English. Australia as of a few years ago was the only country on earth in which more Americans on an absolute basis lived there than Australians in America, but a) the difference wasn't that large, and b) on a per-capita basis the ratio was still 20:1 in favor of an Australian choosing to move to the US compared to the other way around.[1]
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/4rcl0o/til_a...