In my view this isn’t an infrastructure issue. Something is wrong with a country that’s willing to let urban communities fall into total disrepair – with poor schools, abysmal infrastructure, terrible policing, etc.

More to the point Obama’s focus on infrastructure and transportation is more about national survival and growth than about returning to an era of profligate spending. Reagan had a reasonable viewpoint about shrinking the budget of federal government in the early 80s. But similar to Ike in the 50s much of his vision is about tangible, real-world shifts in how the country structures itself for the future (compare what he’s doing to the space race and the interstate system). Much of the “Great Society II” criticism, in that light, seems a bit off.

I’d also challenge your assertion that Europe is cheaper. I think Vienna is fairly cheap for Europe. But London has higher rents than New York, and Paris is quite expensive as well. For what it’s worth, living costs are lower in the US in the sense that a Euro buys less in Europe than its worth in dollars buys in the US.

Taxes are very high in Sweden and so is the cost of living, in some aspects, but the government services that are provided are very, very good.

I guess what I’m saying, is that it depends on where you live. But what we’ve been doing (taxes that are too low and what we already pay, not being used properly; keeping up our infrastructure) can no longer occur.

That’s not true. America’s fundamental problem is that it has always been substantially more unequal than other developed nations. The US Gini index bottomed in 1968, at 0.39; it has since risen to 0.47. Of the eight points the US Gini has gained, two come from a methodological adjustment in 1992. To put things in perspective, post-Thatcher Britain is at 0.36. Compare this to Norway, which went up from 0.29 in 1990 to 0.37 in 2002.

A lot of liberals in the US, especially Paul Krugman, have convinced people that the US used to be a fairly equal nation. It never was. It’s hard to find any developed country with a Gini of even 0.39. Norway has probably reached it by now, and Singapore and Hong Kong are both in the high 40s or low 50s, but that’s about it. Israel’s Gini is 0.37-0.39, depending on who you ask, and it’s considered a national crisis; the only reason it doesn’t get addressed is that Israeli elections are primarily about security, and the person who has the most credibility on it right now, Netanyahu, also happens to be a Reaganite.