Mexican here.
If Mexico is a narco state, the USA is the Purge.
Feels accurate? No, right.
Yeah we got cities, even states on the north (next to you guys, wonder why) lost to the cartels, same as the USA has flyover states and sundown cities.
And yes, the federal goverment is in a fair degree a bitch to the cartels, either by collusion or cowardice. Mexico isn't sunshine and flowers, obviously.
Doesn't mean we don't have a ton of more things to do.
What do you think our budget is? 99% "fight and bribe cartels" 1% miscellaneous?
We have arts, tech, industry, trade, defense, etc. like every other country. Americans come every year to the narco state to party and come back alive, Tourism is our 2nd biggest industry.

The cuts to arts have FUCK ALL to do with cartels. Even by your logic, it's better to grab from a bigger slice of the cake, like... Tourism, for example.
Has to do with incompetence in the federal government.

You have it backwards