[danjayh]

I've got a few answers anyway, if you're interested:

1) The federal government sucks up all of the money -- see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Federal,_State,_and_Local... . And that chart only encompasses income tax -- the overall federal tax rate is closer to 20% GDP. The average person in the US already works until April 24 each year just to pay taxes (if you were to take your all of your taxes and pay them at the beginning of the year). Higher income earners already work well over half the year to pay taxes.

2) People only want these things if somebody else is paying for it. 'Free' healthcare and college tuition seem a lot less 'free' if your property tax (or rent, if your don't own -- landlords still have to pay tax, after all) and/or state income tax suddenly jump by a large percentage to cover it. People are usually very happy to spend somebody else's money (the battle cry is "the rich", but the reality is more like "our children's"), but not their own. Local and state governments have less borrowing capacity than the feds and don't control the currency, so it's harder to obscure the true cost of these things.

3) A lot of people don't actually want them. Although large population centers (which hold a lot of sway at the federal level) tend to favor these things, much of the USA geographically does not. Massachusetts, for instance, already had something very similar to Obamacare (in fact, large parts of Obamacare were based on Massachusetts' "Romneycare" law), but it would have been a cold day in hell before a state like North Dakota passed something like that.

[philipps]

It sounds different if you say

"The average person works until April 24 to pay for things like schools, healthcare, rule of law, roads and trains, internet, etc...".

[icebraining]

Which could still be true if taxes were levied at the state level, no?

[creaghpatr]

depends which state you choose to live in, presumably