biggest problem in the USA

[opebo]

Clearly we are not succeeding in the world we created.  Or, rather, we are stagnating and falling behind.

Several problems with your assumptions:

1) who is this 'we'?  Do you have a turd in your cuff?

2) What do you mean by 'succeeding'?  The 'we' that actually 'decides' things is 'succeeding' mightily in the sense of getting absolutely everything they want.  Nearly all Americans and foreigners are slaves of this 'we'.

3) your claims about 'stagnating' and 'falling behind' are also rather dubious and beside the point, and quaintly professorial/bourgeois.  Not really worth talking about eh?  The point being I find your concerns petty.

[opebo]

 Consider our free and compulsory educational system, and the fact that our students are outperformed by students not only in other OECD nations but in those from the developing world as well.

I guess all other developed countries and quite a few middle income countries do have the free education system as well, and in fact most provide much more for free than the US.  

Consider science, for example.  Everyone who was anyone used to come to the US.  We put a man on the moon.  We built the reactors.  Nowadays, we send our best and brightest to CERN to use their accelerator.  Consider information technology, for example.  Consider the economic opportunity missed because we never built that "information superhighway" that everyone was talking about twenty years ago.  They built one in Japan, where folks really get high-speed internet, and not the clunky service that we know as "high speed" and they get it at a much lower cost than the average consumer pays here.  Consider that we used to lead the world in the percentage of college grads, and now we lag.  Consider the shifting alliances in the Pacific Rim, where the smart governments are slowly, quietly ridding themselves of the very close ties to the US and slowly, quietly establishing relations with China.

Wrong on all counts, angus.  Tech is still in the US.  Where else would it go?  As for the idea that countries are warming up to China - au contraire, mon frere - the great phenomenon of Asian international relations is the rehabilitation of the Old-Empire-in-its-Decline by nearly every Asian country.  They all fear China, and the US relationship is looking very appealing by contrast.  The US-Japan alliance is stronger than ever, S. Korea as well - in both cases due to their enthusiasm for it, not ours.  

The Philippines and Vietnam are desperate to improve US relations and keep China at bay, India is slated to become our close and very strong ally for obvious reasons, as well as creating many new cross-Asia relationships (both security and trade) specifically designed as anti-China and obliquely pro-US.  

Myanmar for chrisakes is breaking mightily with China and rushing into American arms at the first sign of loosening of sanctions.  Really only Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, and Cambodia have yet to show any signs of the fear of Chinese potential.

Think about it this way - when Germany was rising up in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who was more dangerous to a small country's sovereignty and well being?  Germany or Great Britain?

Singapore folks have cleaner sidewalks and more comfortable airplanes than we do.

Good lord man, Singapore is a tiny place, not an apt comparison.  Better compare with large European countries - all better in almost every way in terms of quality of life, and also real countries.  

Our roads are crumbling, and in many places worse than Guatemala's.  Bridges are collapsing, killing people,

That's caused by one thing and one thing only angus, inadequate taxation of the wealthy.

My complaints are real.  

Perhaps but you completely avoid the obvious solution - raise taxes on the rich.  It is the only thing which is different about America from what-it-used-to-be, or from civilized countries now.

[opebo]

As for federal taxes, the corporate tax rate in the US is nearly 40%.  That's higher than much of the world.  Norway, for example, has a corporate tax rate of about 27%, and has a much higher HDI than the United States.  Yes, I know it's a very small, homogeneous population, and you have already objected to such comparisons, but the point is that you cannot assume that raising marginal tax rates is the solution to any problem.

Why are you talking about corporate tax rates?  That's just one small aspect.  Taxes on income (incl. capital gains) are what matters - and the personal income top tax rate is not the 70-90% it was and should be. 

..you make my point for me.  Raising taxes on the rich is not a solution.  We already raise enough revenue to fund schools...  We already give our government huge amounts of money.  The problem is how they spend it. 

Not at all, angus.  The problem is clearly inadequate spending due to under-taxation of the rich.  Simply doubling budgets for the areas you complain of - roads, schools, etc. - and doubling the top tax rate would return America to both solvency and civilization.  The problem is entirely caused by your benighted party and people like you.

[opebo]

You can keep collecting more revenue, but if all we do is pass it on to private corporations, then it's not going to have the effect you are imagining. 

It is your neo-liberal agenda that has put us in this pretty pass of kleptocracy, angus.  Had we never allowed 'free trade', de-unionization, and instead moved further towards progress (nationalization of industries, etc.) instead of away from it since the 70s, we would have political control of 'private property' instead of the rich controlling the State (and us).