Public education is a good example of something that, at present, is largely a failure. We've been losing ground to other countries for years and costs are out of control. Much of it is a near set of localized monopolies with heavy union representation that demands more and more things that are unsustainable - at least in some states.
I'm not surprised to hear your critical of unions. Do you know why teachers by and large are ineffectual in the US? Not because they suck, but because they are wildly underpaid, particularly for how hard the work is. The school systems are underfunded and misfunded. Why? Because the right wing has been chipping away at it for decades, and the moderates think schools can be managed and checked through standardized testing and no-tolerance type mentalities within school administrations. Schools should not, and cannot be treated like a business. If schools were funded more, teachers paid more, proper benefits given, students were invested in more, and infrastructure funded more it would be a great deal better. Private schools are not the answer, and the reason the right pushes for privatization so much is because it allows local areas to run them as they want. It sounds nice on paper, but schools cannot work without broad oversight. As I'm sure you're aware, Finland has one of the best school systems in the world, and that is what everyone should be following to mirror. Asia is not a good model to follow because it places students under extreme stress and pressure in a almost darwinian manner with too much of a reliance on singular tests and standardization.
Really though, one of the first things that needs to be done is teachers salary needs to be significantly higher across the board. That will allow teachers to fund their classrooms better, be better rested, and be compensated for how difficult and extremely important the job is. The budget space for this can 100% be found whether or not you think it can or not.
PIn my state, the average age of retirement is 55. Why is that necessary or appropriate? Why encourage younger teachers to retire early with plum retirement plans? People are fully capable of working into their 60s and likely are happier when they do so. Our colleges are great because the system remains competitive internationally but prices are way out of control much like health care.
Why is retirement at 55 bad? Seriously? Why do people need to work for such a large portion of their lives? We have one life, and why on earth does it have to be spent working for so damn long? Life should be something to be enjoyed, and not everyone finds joy in work. Sometimes people want to do something else. Just because the retirement age is set to 55 doesn't mean everyone will want to leave at that moment (and if they do then then great for them). The puritan rooted mindset of working yourself to the bone as proof of grit and maturity is bullshit. Also, college is not great because it's competitive. If anything the quality of colleges have flatlined or gone down because of school administration glut and lack of oversight. It's also gone down because colleges have to accomidate increasingly for weakened public education when entering the system. Part of the reason colleges in the US have a reputation for quality is from the research programs they conduct. That is competitive to a large extent because that is how acquiring grant funding, but due to funding reductions over time it's becoming excessively competitive which is choking off basic science research (basic meaning fundemental/root/exploratory) which is essential for future innovation, and it's driving science research to be excessively focused on profit-minded applications, which runs against how research needs to be done (if taken to far). For the most part though, this funding doesn't get returned to the students at the undergraduate level. Adjunct positions are decreasing in stability, pay, and respect, while they increase in demand which is lowering the quality of student education. You seem to broadly think competition is a good thing- it's not.
We've taken NASA which started out as an incredible national asset has turned into a kind of procurement machine rather than doing any real development or innovation.
This is just flat out wrong, although I can understand why you think this (and why most people would). NASA was, and continues to be one of the greatest things this country has ever created, and is essential to space and physics research, now more than ever really. Just for one example, the James Webb space telescope is due for launch in a year or two and is to replace hubble. The depth and breath of insight and material we will learn through it is
staggering. It's not "flashy" like sending a person to the moon (which is part of the reason why people think much less of NASA, cause it can't really be flashy anymore), but that absolutely does not mean it's ineffectual. Further, the areas where NASA has been reduced in quality has been due to republication legislation and choaked off funding. There's a pattern there- defunding making things work less. For the right that's often the point: break it through defunding, then claim government doesn't work when they were the ones that intentionally caused it in the first place. This allows for the private sector (which is wildly underregulated) to pick up the slack and continue the privitzation cycle. SpaceX and others like them are great, but they are meant to run in parallel to NASA, not replace it.
I know you work in business and one of your earlier anxieties in life was not having enough money, which is why a lot of your opinions are the way they are. You need to understand though that a business mindset and all that comes with it does
not work in all areas.
Social security started out as a great idea and made sense when it was conceived during the great depression but it's it's a huge tax burden and should probably be restructured. Why does everyone need to participate in a forced retirement savings plan that gets 1.5% return every year?
Because, oh I don't know, compassion for the human condition and how hard being alive is? It needs to be improved, not gutted or replaced with something private.