[throwaway37585]

One of the most important lessons of economics is that “good intent” does not always mean “good results”. Do you have any reason to believe that higher taxes and spending will lead to better outcomes, or higher net societal welfare?

Consider how U.S. education spending per student has ballooned over the last few decades, while outcomes have stayed flat (and in some cases deteriorated).

[knuththetruth]

>Do you have any reason to believe that higher taxes and spending will lead to better outcomes, or higher net societal welfare?

Not the parent, but how about all of Western Europe?

As much as economics wants to tout itself as a science, when confronted with real world examples of what works, tested in real countries over the past 75 years, it just retreats into some dressed-up version of American Exceptionalism to explain the failing of its own prescriptions.

[throwaway37585]

> Not the parent, but how about all of Western Europe?

You're going to have to be more specific. What about "all of Western Europe"?

> As much as economics wants to tout itself as a science

Is this going to be a game of definitions? What qualifies as a "science", in your view? Do you consider sociology to be a science? Psychology? Ecology? Geology? Anthropology? Archaeology? History? Linguistics?

> tested in real countries over the past 75 years

Which 75-year-old policies are you referring to, exactly?

> it just retreats into some dressed-up version of American Exceptionalism

What you could possibly mean by economics being a "dressed-up version of American Exceptionalism" is honestly a complete mystery to me.

> to explain the failing of its own prescriptions.

Which prescriptions are you referring to?