How hard would it be, Terry, to meet Americans in the States and hear them complain in the same way against the federal government? In fact, in the States it could go further than grumbling about taxation and annoying regulations - it could go to reviling the federal government for applying basic human rights (see States' Rights).

Coming back to Europe, the Italians you cite seem to me to be belly-aching without knowledge. The EU does not levy taxes (its budget is small, around 1% of GDP). I'd suggest those people, if the EU didn't exist, would be griping about the Italian government in the same way.