How Much Tax is Too Much?

On this season's last Real Time with Bill Maher, Stephen Bannon, whose only claim to fame seems to be he directed an up and coming documentary about Sarah Palin (counterfactually named "The Undefeated"), voiced a frequently heard right-wing "fact" on the US Economy:

"It's a line in the sand. We don't want, under any circumstance, any increase in revenue.[…] The federal government takes too much tax revenue today."

So as always in these cases I expected someone on the panel, or maybe the moderator, to ask "What do you mean by 'too much' ?", and as always I was disappointed. Neil DeGrasse Tyson came close, but his vague question was never answered.

Really, how does one make the case that the US government takes too much revenue ? I'm guessing they think the US would be a better country if its government took less revenue. That's a hard proposition to test. What we can do is compare the US with all the countries which take less in tax revenue (as percentage of GDP):

United States	26.9
South Africa	26.9
South Korea	26.8
Kazakhstan	26.8
Croatia	26.6
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	26.5
Samoa	25.5
Venezuela	25.0
Solomon Islands	24.7
Papua New Guinea	24.5
Belarus	24.2
Saint Lucia	23.1
Uruguay	23.1
Cape Verde	23.0
Colombia	23.0
Albania	22.9
Argentina	22.9
Morocco	22.3
Suriname	22.1
Fiji	21.8
Georgia	21.7
Belize	21.6
Kyrgyzstan	21.4
Jordan	21.1
Uzbekistan	21.0
Lithuania	20.9
Ghana	20.8
Malawi	20.7
Maldives	20.5
Turkmenistan	20.2
Macau	20.1
Djibouti	20.0
Senegal	19.2
Mauritius	19.0
Gambia	18.9
The Bahamas	18.7
Chile	18.6
Kenya	18.4
Cameroon	18.2
Azerbaijan	17.8
Nicaragua	17.8
Vanuatu	17.8
India	17.7
Burundi	17.4
São Tomé and Príncipe	17.4
People's Republic of China	17.0
Thailand	17.0
Tajikistan	16.5
Zambia	16.1
Egypt	15.8
Honduras	15.6
Malaysia	15.5
Togo	15.5
Benin	15.4
Mauritania	15.4
Côte d'Ivoire	15.3
Mali	15.3
Sri Lanka	15.3
Peru	15.1
Dominican Republic	15.0
Tunisia	14.9
Lebanon	14.4
Philippines	14.4
Singapore	14.2
Armenia	14.1
Rwanda	14.1
Costa Rica	14.0
Vietnam	13.8
Mozambique	13.4
El Salvador	13.3
Democratic Republic of Congo	13.2
Ecuador	13.2
Liberia	13.2
Hong Kong	13.0
Uganda	12.6
Taiwan	12.4
Federated States of Micronesia	12.3
Comoros	12.0
Paraguay	12.0
Tanzania	12.0
Guatemala	11.9
Ethiopia	11.6
Burkina Faso	11.5
Guinea-Bissau	11.5
Indonesia	11.0
Niger	11.0
Nepal	10.9
Laos	10.8
Bhutan	10.7
Madagascar	10.7
Syria	10.7
Panama	10.6
Sierra Leone	10.5
Gabon	10.3
Pakistan	10.2
Mexico	9.7
Haiti	9.4
Bangladesh	8.5
Guinea	8.2
Cambodia	8.0
Algeria	7.7
Central African Republic	7.7
Iran	7.3
Yemen	7.1
Afghanistan	6.4
Sudan	6.3
Nigeria	6.1
Republic of Congo	5.9
Angola	5.7
Saudi Arabia	5.3
Burma	4.9
Bahrain	4.8
Chad	4.2
Libya	2.7
Qatar	2.2
Oman	2.0
Equatorial Guinea	1.7
Kuwait	1.5
United Arab Emirates	1.4

So which one of these countries does the Tea Party want the United States to turn into ? Except for a few resource-rich countries (which the US isn't anymore) and the fast growing export-oriented economies of South Korea and Singapore (ditto), there's not a single country in there that I'm especially eager to move to.

Now let's examine the ten countries which take the most tax revenue :

Kiribati	69.7
Zimbabwe	49.3
Denmark	49.0
Sweden	47.9
Belgium	46.8
France	46.1
Cuba	44.8
Finland	43.6
Norway	43.6
Austria	43.4

I'll admit I'm not a big fan of Zimbabwe, Kiribati, or Cuba. However, I do live in Belgium, and I've been to nearly all the other countries on this list. Trust me, they're doing great.

So what evidence exactly does the Tea Party have for saying US tax revenue is too high ? And, more importantly, why aren't any of the journalists who interview those people making this self-evident point ?!?