I used the word "spin" because that's the way the American public seems to prefer being communicated with by politicians. Most of us don't want to bother really understanding problems or issues. "Just give me the soundbite" seems to satisfy us.

On the back and forth allegations of who did what to whom in which Congress and who got the most money from lobbyists, two facts really pop off the pages for me...

First, special interests using an army of lobbyists effect the work of Congress moreso than us taxpayers. Until there is some really restrictive legislation regarding campaign finance reform, it's not going to change. I hate to say that--but that's the way it is.

The other factor that seems to underly the inability of any administration or Congress in the last couple of decades from accomplishing anything meaningful is the intense partisanship and polarization of all of our elected officials. Those must be some pretty sweet jobs, sitting in the halls of the Capitol and the White House, because almost all of the elected officials from both parties will do almost anything to satisfy their "base" constituencies and keep those jobs for a long, long time. The problem is that the bases are growing farther and farther apart in the narrowness and positions of their idealologies. We have a bunch of elected officials who really like their jobs and will do anything to satisfy their "bases". The result is that nothing meaningful happens in Washington, regardless of the party in power. The rules of the House and Senate have been so purposely complicated that it would take an almost impossible to achieve majority to accomplish anything. It seems to me that the only way out of this morass of polarized inaction is term limits. I'd even go so far as to say that one term is plenty for any of them. That'll never get legislated, so maybe an option is that WE throw them all out every election and start over with a new bunch every election. Maybe something would come of that. Certainly it couldn't be worse.

In the meantime, I think everyone who is cutting and pasting all the great stuff that "their" guys said or did and why the other guys blocked it--save the bandwidth and don't waste everyone's time. Until we get rid of the special interest lobbyists and shorten up the terms of elected officials to make their jobs less attractive, not much is going to happen regardless of who's elected or which party is in control.

P.S. It doesn't take a banking background to figure out how our government really works. You just have to try to follow the money.