From a distance, the Chinese spending seems to be more focused and spread out across their infrastructure at all levels. Is that a difference between engineers running the system and lawyers running the USA?

I certainly would like to see Thorium get some love after basically 50 years of being mothballed moth, and the same goes for the rail system within the United States.

Probably. I mean I don't think anyone would choose Lawyer as the leading profession for leadership. It's a "largely useless" profession outside of it's very narrow context.