Interestingly, the only western power actually still doing something is Germany, which just started a program to invest another 200 billion EUR into education over the next few years.
We might see a return of Germany surpassing the US in science output again.
That program was being discussed as part of the reinvestments over the next 10 years, funded by the tax surplus.
The idea was to spread it to about 20 billion a year, and a similar amount being spent on infrastructure, which would roughly match the 48 billion EUR tax surplus.
It was supposed to be voted on earlier, but I’m not sure what’s being discussed right now, it’s all still unclear.
I do know that some states have already started investing into education, under the assumption they’d get the money back through that.
We might see a return of Germany surpassing the US in science output again.