The US is at or near the top of all western countries on educational spending per student:

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

The US also has the highest spending in health care per capita.

Spending does not equal outcomes.

Yes, I agree. But the comment implied neglect, which is false. Our education system is a mess, but it's not due to neglect, and it doesn't have anything to do with manufacturing being shipped abroad.

As a side note, the US has the second highest public spending per capita (second only to Norway, last I checked). Our Government spends more per citizen than all but one "socialist" country. We then of course spend another doubling of that in private expenditures, and, yes, get worse outcomes.

The US is in a very bad spot.

While I am generally sympathetic to the education and healthcare points, I would be interested in seeing the public spending per capita after defense spending.

I should have been clearer: that is public spending on healthcare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...

Thanks for clarifying.

How much of that public spending is on the prison industrial complex? On "law and order?" Not all public spending is equal.

That is public spending on healthcare:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...

There are not enough "higher quality manufacturing / blue collar jobs." The US has embraced an economic model of outsourcing manufacturing and shifting to an economy based around intellectual property, finance, and other knowledge work. What's left is low-skill, low-pay service jobs, where outsourcing is not possible, but where technology is instead the threat.

And knowledge jobs are jobs for smart people. Most people are not smart enough to do those jobs and no amount of money spent on education (the US spends more than almost every other western country, at every level) can change that.

Yeah, think very carefully before having kids. What kind of life will they have in this country if they are not technical elites of some kind? In the old days, you always needed labor for the farm or factory, but not anymore..

> the US left the poor states to languish with poor education

Why didn't state funding pick up the tab?