Are you a wise person who bows to facts, or are you a partisan imbecile who ignores them?

In 1872 Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. wrote, "A wise man recognizes the convenience of a general statement, but he bows to the authority of a particular fact."

If you're wise and not a partisan imbecile, you might want to bow to the following facts, or at least read them. They are facts on how the United States compares to other industrialized countries in selected areas. They are important facts to know as the Obama administration accelerates the shift to a bigger, more intrusive, and more redistributionist government -- a shift that has been in the works for decades under both Democrat and Republican administrations. Since the current administration seems to hold the social-welfare states of Europe as a model of what the U.S. should become, most of the comparisons are to European countries.

Many of the facts come from the 2008 edition of The World Factbook, published by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Education Spending

The United States spends 5.3% of gross domestic product on education. Since it ranks low on international tests, especially in math and science, this amount of spending must be low relative to other countries. Right? Wrong! Actually, the 5.3% is higher than the 3.5% spent by Japan, the 3.9% by Hong Kong, the 4.5% by Australia and Italy, and the 4.6% by Germany and South Korea. It is equal to the 5.3% spent by the Netherlands.

Granted, many other nations spend more on education as a percent of GDP, especially Scandinavian countries. For example, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark spend 7.1%, 6.4%, and 8.3%, respectively. However, since the United States has higher per-capita GDP than these countries, its education spending on a per-capita basis is higher than the aggregate percentages suggest. To illustrate: The U.S. has a per-capita GDP of $47,000, versus Sweden's per-capita GDP of $38,500. (All GDP numbers are expressed in price parity terms to compensate for currency valuations.) Taking these GDP differences into consideration, the U.S. spends $2,491 per citizen on education, versus $2,733 for Sweden.

The current administration and Congress appear to have a goal of reducing GDP growth through higher taxes on capital and increased regulatory and energy costs. At the same time, they want to increase spending on education and social welfare. The two goals are of course in conflict. Cuba illustrates this point in the extreme. It spends 9.1% of GDP on education, but since it has a per-capita GDP of only $9,500, that comes to a measly $864 per citizen.

Other factors come into play in comparing education spending between countries but are beyond the scope of this article. They include birth rates, immigration rates, the age and racial make-up of the population, and the degree to which the government and teacher unions have a monopoly over K-12 education.

On the last point, due to subsidies for private schools, several other countries have a high percentage of students attending private schools. In Belgium, for example, the figure is about 50%, and in the Netherlands, about 75%. In the U.S., only about 10% of students attend private schools. Of course, the Obama administration, the Democrat-controlled Congress, and most state legislatures are beholden to teacher unions, which have the political power to maintain their near-monopoly over K-12 education.

Income Equality/Inequality

The Gini Index is a generally-accepted way of measuring national income equality/inequality. It uses a scale of zero to 100, with "0" representing perfect income equality and "100" representing perfect income inequality. As would be expected, communist countries have the most income equality, albeit far from perfect equality. At the other extreme, non-communist dictatorships of sub-Saharan Africa have the most inequality.

Per-capita GDP is very low at both extremes, which is a fancy way of saying that a lack of freedom produces an abundance of poverty. This is confirmed by the Index of Economic Freedom, which is published jointly by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. That index shows that the more economic freedom, the wealthier the nation; conversely, the less economic freedom, the poorer the nation.

The U.S. has a lower Gini score (45) than Hong Kong (53.3) and Singapore (48.1). This means that these two Asian countries have more income inequality than the U.S. Singapore has a higher per-capita GDP than the U.S., while Hong Kong's is slightly lower.

Not surprisingly, the U.S. has a higher Gini score (more income inequality) than European countries. But it also has higher GDP per capita. Below is a list of selected countries and their corresponding Gini scores and per-capita GDP.

United States (45, $47,000)
Switzerland (33.7, $40,900)
Netherlands (30.9, $40,300)
Austria (26, $39,200)
Sweden (23, $38,500)
Belgium (28, $37,500)
Germany (27, $34,800)

The above list is in rank-order of GDP per capita. Thus, the U.S. is highest in per-capita GDP, and Germany is lowest (due in part to its merging with the former East Germany). There is an obvious lesson here, but it will no doubt be lost on Americans who advocate more redistribution. (Note: Norway was not included on the above list, because North Sea oil revenue distorts its economic picture, just as oil revenue in the Middle East gives a distorted picture of prosperity in oil-producing states there.)

Another interesting observation is that all of the European countries above are smaller in population and land mass and much more racially homogenous than the U.S. Could it be that in Western democracies, people are more willing to vote for higher redistribution if they feel "tribal" kinship toward each other? Further study would be needed to answer the question, but since the findings might go against the conventional wisdom about the value of diversity, it is doubtful that a university or the U.S. government would undertake such a study.

It's also interesting to note that the European countries listed above have higher trade union membership and more inflexible labor laws. This would suggest that unionization results in more redistribution but less wealth.

Auto Industry and National Wealth

Americans have been told that a domestic auto industry is critical for continued prosperity. But only eight of the top 50 countries in per-capita GDP have a domestic auto industry. And in the top 20, only one does, the United States. Four of the countries with a domestic auto industry rank 30th or lower in per-capita GDP.

Birth Rates, Population Growth, and Entitlement Bills

The United States has a much higher birth rate per 1,000 population than the European Union: 14.2 vs. 9.9. As would be expected, the U.S. also has a younger population.

The population growth rate is also much higher in the United States than the European Union: 0.975% vs. 0.108%. (The population growth rate considers the net difference between births and deaths, and between immigration and emigration.)

These demographics suggest that entitlement spending on the elderly is even less sustainable in Europe than in the U.S., because there are relatively fewer young people in Europe to stick with the tab. Even so, the entitlement bills are staggering in the U.S. Estimates of unfunded liabilities for entitlements range from $60 to $90 trillion, or $800,000 to $1.2 million for each American under the age of 18.

Military Spending

It's no surprise that military spending as a percent of GDP is much higher in the United States than in European countries. For example, military spending is about 4% of GDP in the U.S., versus 1.5% in Sweden, 1% in Switzerland, 1.8% in Italy, 1.5% in Germany, 2.4% in the United Kingdom, and 2.6% in France.

The American Right says that Europe is getting a free ride from the United States, militarily speaking. The American Left says that Europe doesn't need a big defense budget because it doesn't stick its military nose in other countries. There is probably some truth to both arguments, but it's undeniable that lower military spending leaves more money for social welfare spending.

U.S. military spending doesn't seem so high when compared to selected non-European countries. For example, Saudi Arabia spends 10% of GDP on the military, Jordan spends 8.6%, Israel spends 7.3%, Russia spends 3.9%, and Cuba spends 3.8%.

High-Speed Rail Transit

President [sic] Obama has announced a plan to build a high-speed rail network, primarily in "blue" states. But according to transit expert Randal O'Toole, high-speed rail is uneconomical, and even in Europe, has not stemmed the growth in automobile and air travel. Writing in the March 2009 edition of Liberty magazine, O'Toole said:

Italy, France, and Germany started building high-speed rail lines in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Today, trillions of euros later, Europe has an extensive high-speed rail network connecting London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, and many other major cities.

Yet construction of this network has not halted the decline of rail's share of European travel. In 1980, when Europe had only one high-speed rail line, intercity rail carried 8.2% of passenger travel in the EU-15 (the 15 members of the European Union in 2000). By 2000, rail's share had declined to 6.3%. Auto's share has grown from 76.4% to 78.3%, and air travel has grown from 2.5 to 5.8%.

Rail has continued to lose share since 2000. In the EU-25 (the 25 members of the European Union in 2005), rail's share fell from 6.2% in 2000 to 5.8% in 2004. At best, high-speed rail has slowed the decline of rail's importance in passenger travel.

Because France and Germany have the most high-speed rail lines, rail has a higher share of travel in those countries than in the rest of Europe. But this is at the expense of buses, not autos: the automobile's share of travel in France and Germany is also higher than in the rest of Europe.

Health Care Costs and Effectiveness

This is a subject that I've been studying for 15 years and have concluded that comparisons between the U.S. and countries with socialized medicine are too complicated to draw any definite conclusions, due to widely different measurements, demographics, culture, lifestyle, and diets between countries. Besides, the U.S. health care system is not a market system as many Americans believe. It is a Rube Goldberg contraption that was built by the tax code, by state and federal regulations and price controls, by a strange combination of employer-provided and government-provided health insurance, by rent-seeking corporations, and by pleadings by special interests. I have spent a considerable amount of my own time and money in trying to fix the contraption without resorting to socialized medicine, but the vested interests are too entrenched to let a true consumer market develop in medical care and insurance.

There are endless debates on whether government-provided health care is more or less efficacious than market-based health care (interestingly, few people have the same debate about food, shelter, and clothing). But since the U.S. doesn't have a market-based system, the arguments are based on political and economic philosophy and not facts. They essentially boil down to the issue of who should decide your medical treatments and expenditures: you or a government bureaucrat. Either way, someone has to make economic trade-offs and ration health care, because someone has to decide how much a life is worth, how much to save in youth for the infirmities of old age, and how much of personal or national wealth should be spent on health care. My bias is that I want to make those decisions for myself and my loved ones. I don't want bureaucrats and politicians to make them for me.

In closing, my compliments to you. If you read this essay and bowed to the facts, you're a wise person and not a partisan imbecile.