An average American makes $60K per person in 40 out of 50 states, so no: they clearly don't have to live in CA/NY/NJ. Furthermore, the German comment is from someone in the top 10% of income, so it gets even better for Americans once you're comparing the upper income brackets.

The US median household pays roughly 10–12% of income in federal taxes. A German median-wage single worker's net rate is somewhere in the high-20s to high-30s percent.

Germany will be 10 to 20% higher in total taxes: income, property, sales/VAT, etc; than an American at a comparable professional income. If you claim to be paying 40, you'd be paying 50%+ in Germany. $10 to 30K a year more gives you a lot of room to save for college, pay for medical expenses, etc: the "safety net" in Europe only helps you if you don't want to work or don't want to earn a significant income.

States feature low or 0 income tax, including desirable places to live like Florida and Texas. Yes, they'll have property taxes or others, but again: personal decisions. If you choose to live in CA, vote for CA policies, then you have to pay for CA's waste.

If you read my comment, you'll see I'm saying you can minimize college expenses by doing 2 years at CC, then transferring, yielding a total college spend of just a few thousand dollars (not the absurd $100K student debt loads people incessantly whine about online). Healthcare costs are simple: if you pay for ACA-aligned insurance, again, your costs are capped: $10K OOP max sucks, but if you made the decision to purchase insurance, you're not paying the $200K medical debt people claim online.

My central claim was and remains: America provides more opportunity to earn money, and people misrepresent the "downside risk" of America's approach to healthcare, college, and income by refusing to acknowledge that the worst outcomes are of people's own making. America gives you far more opportunity to excel, but also doesn't backstop your personal failures with your neighbor's work to the same extent (at the individual level, ignoring govt. bailouts of companies).