historically, the Jews in the OT paid an effective tax rate of about 23 to 25 percent.
and in ancient Egypt, Joseph imposed a tax rate of 20% before the famine came.
so our average burden of about 20% is not out of line with history.
or you can do what Reagan did long ago: figure out how much you need to earn for the year, and then stop working, as he saw no point in working all day just to hand it over to .gov.