That is sophistry Phillip. Everyone knows we have these problems. This is a typical dog whistle argument.
Let's unpack this a bit:
Education: Budgets should go toward any thing that furthers the core Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, safe, clean, school environments.
The issues of poverty and health insurance is only going to get worse as we pile more people crossing the border illegally onto the social safety hammock.
As an example: Texas alone spends close to $1 billion yearly for medical, education, housing, food, etc on illegal immigrants. I'm sure they would like to have this freed up for other issues like mental health care and reducing illiteracy rates.
On the education front I've got to ask: There is no good reason for someone in the U.S to be illiterate if they have no brain development issues. So while the # is a problem I don't think it's one of the governments making.
On the poverty rate that is ~10% and probably cross sectional with the mental illness, illiterate, and un/under insured. So that poster is counting people 2-3X. It's high by Western standards (England is 20%, Norway is .5%).
I think larger populations will have higher rates in general. I think smaller, homogeneous, are able to tackle these issues better since the group think tends to go in the same direction so quicker to act and in unison.
As a personal experience: I've been doing a free Cisco CCNA course 1/year for 5 years now. It's 12 weeks class and 4 weeks I'll answer emails for specific questions (I mostly have a video library built up for this portion). I work with clients to procure older, but 100% viable equipment for the lending library.
This is a way for someone to take a free course, spend $300 on a test, and literally start making $60K a year and be at $100K plus in five if they are disciplined.
Out of 73 students I've only had 4 go get their certificate and get into the business. I just bumped into one that dropped half way through working an $18 an hour job with almost zero benefits. What kills me is they could have totally accomplished it.
While it disheartens me to see so many struggling financially (my older brother is homeless for a whole host of reasons), my younger makes about $40K/year with two kids and entirely living on the edge of financial ruin. My parents could never get them to take anything seriously including a free education.
So I'm a believer in personal agency based on my experience.