> Govt Reps get elected for a lot of things. Maintaining our roads, bridges and infrastructure are always buzzwords during elections.

You're arguing against conventional political wisdom wrt the US, so I think the onus is on you to provide a better argument than sometimes the conventional wisdom is wrong.

> Your link to Brookings just reinforces the issue. For profit schools account for 10% of students, borrow more often compared to public school students, and borrow more money. The Fed link shows that these students default more; they also are higher in pure dollar terms when it comes to Pell grants and Stafford loans. There's no good defense for profit schools.

Your original comment was that loans to for profit colleges were the cause of bad education. I'm pointing out that they account for a tiny fraction of all degrees. You aren't making an argument here that shows the margins driving overall outcomes. The loan amounts aren't really relevant to the quality, or at least you aren't making that argument. I actually don't think the federal government should be in the lending game for education. It's too indirect and creates perverse incentives.

> Our tax to GDP has been constant for decades. Wow. I guess that wouldn't coincide with the Republican and Grover Norquist's efforts to "drown the baby in the bath tub?"

Yes, federal receipts as a percentage of GDP have vacillated between 14% and 19% since 1944 averaging around 17%. Grover Norquist's Tax Reform Act in '85 was followed by a 5 year uptick in federal tax receipts. Countries that capture more tax as a percentage of GDP do so through VAT.

> A tax code can be "progressive" in theory while in practice it's regressive since the wealthy can shelter so much of their income

The top 50% of earners pay 97% of federal income taxes in the US, which is the vast majority of federal revenue. That is definitionally a progressive tax scheme, in fact the most progressive globally by any measure. To argue otherwise is to deny basic confirmable facts. If your argument is about the 400 wealthiest families in America, then that's something else entirely, but it doesn't make the tax regime regressive.

> If you look at trust in government, it was in the mid 70% range up until 1960

You're looking at a measure that only starts after WWII, and probably in those early years excluded racial minorities.

> So obviously all the people in 1950 were so scarred by how poorly the British Parliament treated us in the 1700s.

This isn't an argument, it's jus reductio ad absurdum and misrepresents my argument about the cultural and historical roots of skepticism of government.

> The drop in trust dropped during the Vietnam War when both parties continually lied to the American people, and since then has hovered in the 30% range for 40 years

Can you blame anyone for being upset about Vietnam, Watergate, and the Cuban Missile Crisis?

> But it's pretty clear that one party has had a platform for over 40 years to diminish the accomplishments of the Federal Government (except the Military), to starve it of funds, to politicize it's agencies.

I think it's pretty clear that both political parties have been behind some rotten shit since Vietnam. Both parties were in favor of the drug war, needless foreign adventurism, the bungling of trade liberalization, and a raft of other stupid things.

I would argue that both parties see government as a cudgel to bludgeon their adversaries with, and not as a tool with witch to achieve social good. As far as I can tell they're both obsessed with fighting culture war battles and have very little interest in the practical concerns of governance.