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I'm pretty sure the largest contribution to whatever greatness the U.S. ever had was due to lack of competition after WWII with the side benefit of imported talent (like Nazi rocket scientists) at that time.

That said, even before WWII we had things like the Civilian Conservation Corps that spent government money to create jobs for erosion control, parks improvement, and the like as a means of mitigating the Great Depression. We taxed the wealthy's income at 63% (later 90%) and paid government employees well.

So WWII ended and U.S. factories were intact while those in Europe were in ruins, but here come the returning G.I.s, getting government support to go to college and buy suburban homes (if you were white). The U.S. got a jump start on industry, science, and technology. We still had the awful state run institutions that hid orphans, disabled, and mentally ill away from the public, so it wasn't a paradise, but I'm not sure abandoning these people to live on the streets is much better, it simply costs less.

All this time, white collar workers tended to work for one company for their whole career, but getting a government job was a good deal. The government wanted to offer competitive salaries (plus paid vacation time, pension, and health care) to attract talent. Industry could outbid a government job, but some people might object to one company or another for personal or ethical reasons, while feeling like the government was a good cause to do good work. I'm not sure, but I feel like Vietnam-era stuff hurt the public opinion of the government.

Anyway, somewhere around the time people started job switching and pensions became less stable, it feels like the government became less interested in setting a standard wage that would let people thrive. Am I wrong? Am I looking at the past with rose tinted glasses?

It feels like better public projects got done when it was government employees rather than subcontractors. It feels like the government went from paying people a fair wage to announcing they were going to cut costs by hiring contractors, but then paid the same amount to have 3rd party workers get much less money while the contractor took a nice slice for themselves.

I distinctly remember NAFTA coming into being and politicians talking about how much cheaper things would be when we could import more easily, and I was thinking "Who wants 'cheap' when this will close your factories?" Turns out, people love 'cheap' more than a decent job or a fair wage.

Meanwhile, I'm wishing the government was investing in more stuff and in its struggling citizens. I don't want the government forcing children into career paths, but I think it'd be nice if it said, "Hey! We think we'll need more doctors soon, so we'll pay for your school if you want to do that." It'd be nice if the government paid a good salary to do things like trash disposal, street cleaning, or whatever. More well paid government jobs would make for better wage competition in the rest of the market, would it not? And would it not work better the more government employees there were?

I'm obviously not an economist nor historian, so feel free to shoot me down where I've got things wrong.