US Govt chooses to allocate OVER HALF of its budget to corporate welfare in the form of the Military Industrial Complex. No-bid contracts gifted to large corporations whose leadership is occupied by ex-politicians and ex-military brass that approved previous no-bid gift contracts to those same corporations.
That choice to pour over half of the budget into exploding the bodies of people all over the world comes at a price... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
European countries who are not pretending to be the world police and who don't pour over half of their budget into military spending have shit tons of money for spending on other things such as paid maternity leave... coming from taxes (NOT FROM COMPANIES THEMSELVES!)
Taxes do not need to be higher to finance this... but choices to not pour more than half of existing tax revenue into corporate welfare military industrial complexes need to be made in order to make such things as tax-funded maternity leave, healthcare, etc possible.
it all comes down to how govts choose to allocate their existing tax revenue
to the Military
or to things that make life better for everyone