> These statistics don’t take into account things like the disproportionately high cost of healthcare in the US, so percentage of dollars spent isn’t an especially meaningful measure.
It depends what you're measuring. OP is talking about Americans' willingness to "invest in their own people." That's an issue of "money in" not "results out." On healthcare, for example, U.S. governments spend 8% of GDP. That's on the middle-high side compared to the rest of the OECD: https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Country-Note-GERMANY.... We just manage to cover a fraction of the population for similar levels of spending. The same is true for our public education--we spend more get less.
That suggests a very different narrative than what OP was saying. "We spend so much on education, why are our kids falling behind?" Versus: "Why aren't Americans willing to invest in education?"
The problem isn't that America isn't "willing to invest in its own people." It's that Americans get far less in the way of public services for the amount of money they spend. It's a problem of efficiency, not generosity.
> Social Security payments maybe, but you would have to ... account for how the wealthy escape paying into the system at anything like a progressive level.
The earnings cap for Social Security is common in OECD countries, and our cap is higher than most: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2018/04/28/so-hey-why-no.... (Comparisons are a bit difficult. France, for example, has a cap on Social Security taxes, but no cap on healthcare payroll taxes. But the U.S. has no cap on Medicare taxes, and we pay Medicaid out of income tax, which is highly progressive.)
It's also funny you use the U.K. as an example. The maximum state pension in the U.K. amounts to about $10,000/year. The average U.S. Social Security payment amounts to $17,500 per year.
> As this article demonstrates, Americans are great at paying out lots of money into private systems without receiving good material returns on these investments.
Except health insurance, the U.S. is generally behind Europe in terms of privatizing public services. For example, not even Republicans are talking about privitizing Social Security, but some level of privitization of retirement accounts is common in other countries: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v66n1/v66n1p31.html. Australia, Denmark, and Sweden are examples of countries that have partially privitized their Social Security by imposing mandatory participation in private pension systems as part of the overall retirement system.
Transit systems in Europe are often privately operated, while in the U.S. they're almost all publicly operated.
91% of American students attend publicly managed schools, below the OECD average of 82%: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/50110750.pdf. Spain, South Korea, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Australia are countries where 1/3 or more (70% in Belgium) of students attend private schools. In the OECD, it's common for private schools to receive government funding (via voucher-like systems). Sweden, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Spain, are examples of countries where private schools receive more than 60% of their funding from the government.
The EU is undertaking a vast reform that would require opening up local utilities to competition: https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-19_en.htm. Among other things, it could speed up the privatization of water systems in Europe (private water systems are already fairly common there, but basically unheard of in the U.S.)