The brilliance of our Founding Fathers cannot be measured. They put together a system where the Fire Marshall's (add your own specialist) can only advise the policy makers. Policy makers (originally) were elected officials drawn from various communities with no "dog in the hunt" on most of the decisions they end up making. This balancing of the power and information made for an amazing propelling of inventive, unrestricted progress the world has never seen before.
Competence at every level of the way, is the great scale of success. Competence implies intimate understanding of each task, creative freedom to improve methods or research new ideas, an intuitive balance of efficiency and quality.
America will fall because leftist greed mongers oppose paying for training so that people can be creative (public schools love affair with evolution convincing children they have no greater purpose than to be a corralled animal "school to work"). Recognizing God given creativity propels people to reach for new levels of production. America's greatest contribution to history! The "Source" of creativity must be acknowledged in order for a nation to continue to progress.
P.S. I gleaned the Fire Marshall illustration from Dennis Prager.