By Star Parker, The Daily Signal - (T)he highest tax burden in the industrialized world is in France—46.1 percent of gross domestic product… In the United States, it is 27 percent… Welfare state spending in France is 32 percent of GDP, almost double that of the U.S… But let’s recall that all this government was put in place in the name of making life better for France’s citizens… The vast expansion of the welfare state, both in Europe and in the United States, occurred in tandem with a weakening of the family. And weakening of the family generally occurs in an environment of weakening of religion.