Well you gotta compare the right numbers with one another... while the German tax rates don't seem so high by themselves, when comparing them with the tax burdens of other countries you have to consider that many other countries include stuff like health insurance in the taxes.

So if you really want to compare, you need to consider the combined load of all mandatory payments you make - and if you look at those, you end up close to 40 % of your income for an average earner. You might receive a higher standard out of it, but the money is still gone in the moment. (And the public retirement system doesn't work in the way that you save up money. Instead you pay current retiree's payments and hope the system still works when it's your term to be payed).

In the end, as an average earner myself, I could not really complain that my standard of living is too bad. But you know, more money has an appeal, and the skilled labor forces our economy so desperately needs might be discouraged from coming to Germany/skilled labor force hear might leave.