In the shadow of its exceptionalism, America fails to invest in the basics

Compared with its developed-world peers, America has always been a study in contrasts, a paradox of exceptional achievement and jaw-dropping deprivation. Rarely have the disparities been rendered as vividly as in recent weeks and months. Historic breakthroughs in science, medicine and technology coexist intimately — and uneasily — alongside monumental failures of infrastructure, public health and equitable access to basic human needs. America spins out endless entertainment to keep millions preoccupied during lockdown — and keep tech shares riding high on Wall Street — but leaves kids disconnected from the access they need to do their schoolwork. The disparities reflect a multitude of factors, experts say, but primarily stem from a few big ones: Compared with other well-to-do nations, the United States has tended to prioritize private wealth over public resources, individualism over equity and the shiny new thing over the dull but necessary task of maintaining its infrastructure, much of which is fast becoming a 20th century relic. Those choices can pay dividends, as they do when the US leads the world in health-care innovation or electrifies the automobile. They also have consequences. The nation’s infrastructure — the airports, broadband networks, transit systems, utility lines, ports and sewers that keep society humming — is in a perilous state from decades of underinvestment that has transcended both Republican and Democratic administrations.