In the US the present order of economic policy mistakes is: Federal spending[1] > Healthcare costs[2] > Energy investment[3] > University degrees[4] > Infrastr

In the US the present order of economic policy mistakes is: Federal spending[1] > Healthcare costs[2] > Energy investment[3] > University degrees[4] > Infrastructure investment[5] > Home ownership > New vehicles [1] Economic output grows by 4%, spending grows by 12%. Entitlement costs go up, taxes go down. Military spending. $900b (3.x% of GDP equivalent) per year in debt interest costs projected for 2028 (CBO), most of which shouldn't exist and should be going to infrastructure, healthcare, Social Security, and so on. [2] Not healthcare unto itself, healthcare costs. Spending $3.6 trillion on healthcare nationally when we should be spending $2.4 trillion or less (the UK equivalent ratio would be more like ~$1.5 trillion). [3] Not building a lot more nuclear. Not phasing out coal fast enough. Not building an obnoxious amount of off-shore wind. Not upgrading our grid to widely distribute from large output centers better (the central wind corridor can probably eventually export vast wind power to the coasts). Not better preparing our grid for the all-electric consumer vehicle future that is inbound. Etc. [4] Pushing the notion that you absolutely must get at least a four year degree is akin to the dogma that you must own a home. A subset to that is the notion that you should spend a particularly absurd amount of money when you could get a degree of similar outcome effectiveness at half the price from an in-state public school. [5] Lack thereof. Including not building high-speed rail (even if only regionally) and not aggressively going after the vast urban deployment of electric buses. Maybe we can't build cheap subways or rail anymore, however we can buy relatively cheap electric buses and dedicate routes to a lot of them and we can do it damn easily.