Since the first few responses to the initial query in this thread, it's been rants about recent historical political figures and attacks on one another. Oh, and the occasional vitriol about the President who was fairly elected in the 2008 election. I don't think there's been even one attempted answer to the initial question.

Like someone suggested in another post here, if the American electorate is as bitterly ideologically divided as the handful of posters on this forum, we're going to deserve the government we get as the result, and the life-changing effect their continued polarized inaction will have on us, our kids and grandkids.

With thoughtlessness such as is demonstrated here, it's easy to see why the Congress doesn't work, and why even the super committee, which has such an awesome responsibility, has simply given up and gone home, unable and unwilling to negotiate an agreement on any single issue, even those that they admit they largely agree on. Unbelievable!

But based on how people conduct themselves here, not surprising, I guess.