U.S. political leadership is focused on competitiveness but may be oversimplifying requirements for its achievement. Most specifically, the political system itself. The institutional framework is such that the most powerful special interests become favored. Public spending on education has been rising but there are a dozen countries with a higher share of the population holding college degrees and yet all rank lower in competitiveness. The measure of competitiveness used by IMD in Switzerland involves 334 criteria and not just GDP and productivity. A large negative for the U.S. is public finance where an exploding budget deficit has tripled in the past four years as a predicted drag on competitiveness. ...