I'm not convinced that our country's problems our strongly linked to lower priced goods, or our relatively high military spending.
First of all, not all of the price differences between the US and Europe can be explained by taxes alone. Some things, like gas, sure. But other things, for instance electronics, cost way more than the exact same items in the US, more than could be explained by VAT. Also, property is much more expensive overall in Europe than in the US and that isn't tax related.
Our healthcare issues have nothing to do underfunding. We spend more per capita than anyone else on healthcare, while getting worse outcomes. The solution to that is not to throw more money at the problem! We need to focus on efficiency.
As for education, that varies greatly from state to state, locality to locality. Parts of the US are doing quite well; Massachusetts recently outperformed most of Europe in a global assessment. Similarly to healthcare, we are not underfunding our education in comparison with other developed nations. I believe we come in 5th for per capita spending. Forgive me for being skeptical being the #1 spender will make us #1 in education. Here in the Boston area, we have districts that are spending significantly more per capita than their neighbors while getting worse results.
Urban sprawl has more to do with our history than our current policies. Australia, like Europe, has higher taxes and prices, yet they still have America-like sprawl. As for public transit, I definitely agree that we need to improve it. However, that's another thing that tends to be cheaper in the US. In New York, $2.75 will get you between any two points in the vast subway network. London, on the other hand, uses a more expensive and complex zone-based system. Having used both I actually slightly prefer New York's system overall. But you'd think with lower taxes in the US, public transit would need to charge higher fares to maintain good service.
Part of the reason we have more road deaths than other countries is that we drive a lot more. If you adjust for miles driven, the US certainly doesn't come out on top, but looks MUCH less bad in comparison to other countries than if you just look at raw per capita numbers. I do think we should raise our standards to get a drivers license to help get our numbers down more. But this isn't really related to the thread.
It seems many of your gripes seem to have more to do with American culture than economic policies. For example: live to work vs. work to live, food, expectations of college students, etc. The question about moving to Europe may have been genuinely curious, rather than a hostile "If you don't like it, than leave!" suggestion.