I think this is a result of never truly leaving a wartime economy. We had WWII, then the Korean War, then the Cold War (with Vietnam in the middle) all on top of each other and justifying the expense for almost 50 years. I don't think America knows how to cut defense without losing military dominance. As te_chris said, Defense spending might be a red herring, but I would say it is almost certainly the foundation of the problem.
The other major budget problem is welfare/comunal programs. These have been hyperinflated over the last 20-30 years or so. I personally believe one of the reasons it works so much better in Europe is the fact that any given program is orders of magnitude smaller than American attempts. To improve quality-of-life to the level the article wants, I think America need to trim (trim, not cut) military spending and stop welfare spending entirely and let the states handle it (with parameters of course, but it would be a far less unwieldy beast for them handle).
Cutting military spending would also hurt the American economy massively. There are over two million soldiers in the military, with an unbelievable number of nonsoldiers building equipment that they use. If we scale back, all of that money injected into our economy would be lost.
The other major budget problem is welfare/comunal programs. These have been hyperinflated over the last 20-30 years or so. I personally believe one of the reasons it works so much better in Europe is the fact that any given program is orders of magnitude smaller than American attempts. To improve quality-of-life to the level the article wants, I think America need to trim (trim, not cut) military spending and stop welfare spending entirely and let the states handle it (with parameters of course, but it would be a far less unwieldy beast for them handle).