[emodendroket]

For instance, in a social democracy you could have supports in place such that people unable to afford housing, food, or healthcare could be provided with those things, whereas in our system the amount of assistance available is quite small and often gated by onerous or humiliating procedures, meaning a high level of precarity for the 43% of households which can't really afford those things (let alone deal with a large, unexpected expense).

[throwaway37585]

One of the most important lessons of economics is that “good intent” does not always mean “good results”. Do you have any reason to believe that higher taxes and spending will lead to better outcomes, or higher net societal welfare?

Consider how U.S. education spending per student has ballooned over the last few decades, while outcomes have stayed flat (and in some cases deteriorated).

[knuththetruth]

>Do you have any reason to believe that higher taxes and spending will lead to better outcomes, or higher net societal welfare?

Not the parent, but how about all of Western Europe?

As much as economics wants to tout itself as a science, when confronted with real world examples of what works, tested in real countries over the past 75 years, it just retreats into some dressed-up version of American Exceptionalism to explain the failing of its own prescriptions.

[throwaway37585]

> Not the parent, but how about all of Western Europe?

You're going to have to be more specific. What about "all of Western Europe"?

> As much as economics wants to tout itself as a science

Is this going to be a game of definitions? What qualifies as a "science", in your view? Do you consider sociology to be a science? Psychology? Ecology? Geology? Anthropology? Archaeology? History? Linguistics?

> tested in real countries over the past 75 years

Which 75-year-old policies are you referring to, exactly?

> it just retreats into some dressed-up version of American Exceptionalism

What you could possibly mean by economics being a "dressed-up version of American Exceptionalism" is honestly a complete mystery to me.

> to explain the failing of its own prescriptions.

Which prescriptions are you referring to?

[knuththetruth]

You said:

“Do you have any reason to believe that higher taxes and spending will lead to better outcomes, or higher net societal welfare?”

...And the historical example of Western European social democracies like France, Germany, and the Scandinavian states prove this.

>Which 75-year-old policies are you referring to, exactly?

Nationalized healthcare, massive investments in public transportation and education, higher welfare floors and labor protections.

[throwaway37585]

Interesting that you mention that. Relative to the size of its wealth, the U.S. spends a disproportionate amount on health care. Even as a high income country, the U.S. spends more per person on health than comparable countries. Total health expenditures per capita, U.S. dollars, PPP adjusted, 2016 [1]:

United States: $10,348

Switzerland: $7,919

Germany: $5,550

Netherlands: $5,385

Austria: $5,227

Belgium: $4,839

France: $4,600

United Kingdom: $4,192

See [2] for a breakdown by country of government/compulsory healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP: https://imgur.com/a/BzaVX6w. The U.S. comes out on top, by far. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the problems with U.S. healthcare won't be solved by pouring more money into it, but rather by addressing systemic issues with the way it works?

Regarding education:

The United States spends more than other developed nations on its students' education each year... Spending, of course, only tells part of the story and does not guarantee students' success. The United States routinely trails its rival countries in performances on international exams despite being among the heaviest spenders on education... The average first-year high school teacher in the United States earns about $38,000. OECD nations pay their comparable educators just more than $31,000... Among all educators, U.S. payrolls are competitive. The average high school teacher in the United States earns about $53,000, well above the average of $45,500 among all OECD nations. [3]

The United States spent $12,300 per FTE student at the elementary/secondary level, which was 29 percent higher than the average of $9,600 for OECD member countries reporting data... At the postsecondary level, total government and private expenditures on education institutions as a percentage of GDP by the United States (2.7 percent) were higher than the OECD average (1.6 percent) and were higher than those of all other OECD countries reporting data. [4]

Again, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the problems with U.S. education won't be solved by pouring more money into it, but rather by addressing systemic issues with the way it works?

[1] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...

[2] https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm

[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-education-spending-tops-glob...

[4] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

[knuththetruth]

The US spends a disproportionate amount on healthcare because its system is privatized. Healthcare is cheaper relative to the degree of nationalization, as your own data shows. Switzerland and Germany are closed to the American model (although not as bad) and cost more. You specifically said “tax and spend,” not just spend, because you reduce costs with societal-level economies of scale. Of course you spend more in a privatized system - you have a bunch of vultures trying to profit off people at their weakest and most vulnerable.

Education in the US suffers from a similar problem because of its patchwork and variable system of state and federal funding, much of which was specifically designed to disadvantage the poor and minorities.

All your data points show is that privatizing and applying inconsistent distribution regimes to what should be public goods makes them more costly, less efficient, and produce worse outcomes in aggregate.