>We can't pass legislation to guarantee a $15/hr minimum wage in the US.
>Do you think you could live on $15/hr, John?
>
>The train systems connecting major US cities are collapsing.
>US airports look like 3rd world airports.
>
>The US spends more on its military than the next 7 countries combined and serious people think that we need to spend more.
>This country has been at war since 2001 and there is no end in sight.
>

I am with you that US military spending is too high and/but German level is too low to be self sufficient. A level somewhere in between...

But the same degradation of infrastructure can be seen over here (former West Germany) - starting in the 80ies, accelerated after Fall of Wall, which shifted much to the east, not only with a declared tax hike ("Solidaritätszuschlag") still in effect, but more hurtng via giving tax benefits for investing in the former east, which resulted in quite a few DM burned there by renovating with no real chance of ROI.

For me the elephant in the room is the amount taken from almost every (low) income, not giving back enough value for the "underpriviledged".
Industrialzed nations should not let people willing to work starve, but giving out money for nothing is inducing rot from the core.

Sources for that opinion distribute from females working quite high up in local office of Employment Agency (for normal people and for universities) to the tales of some devs of "training" received between jobs... Make-believe billed at incredible rates to spruce up statistics.