I wish the author was a member here.
No offense to either of you intended, but I disagree. Strongly. You speak of "the general populace" as if they aren't every bit as divided as Washington. They are. You speak of "solutions" as if we the people agree on what the solutions are. We don't. Romney put his finger on the problem - half of us pay for the other half - and was crucified for it. And the paying half votes for one party and the non-paying half votes for the other party. Sure, there are exceptions, but they are about as rare as liberals on this forum, they don't have much to do with deciding many elections, and they about cancel each other out. For the most part, where the paying half is a majority Republicans win, and where the non-paying half is the majority the Democratic wins. There's little pockets of payers in Northern CA and NE that vote Democrat, and there's little pockets of non-payers that vote Republican in the South. But payer vs. non-payer is the central friction in this country, it has been since FDR, and it won't go away until the payers are in such a distinct minority that the Republicans no longer matter. Of course, when that day comes we will have officially run out of other people's money and the entire country won't matter anymore, but that's the inevitable end of the path we're on and it's the one that the Democratics are pushing us toward. The top 1% - the devil incarnate for our uniting President (PBUH) - pay nearly a quarter of the income taxes, and the Democratics tell us that they aren't paying their fair share. And when asked what is their fair share they won't answer, implying that there really is no upper bound. Ask Mickey. Hell, ask Dukie. No Democratic will, or can, ever answer that question. Until they do, and until they can pass the laugh test with their answer, speaking of Washington as if it is the problem is nonsense. Democratics are the problem.
And before anyone says that Republicans like Romney and Bush are the problem, too, ask yourself this: if only Republicans voted, what chance do you think Romney or Bush would have of being nominated for any position higher than dog catcher? We nominate Republicans like Romney and Bush because the people that the Republicans actually want to nominate can't possibly win. Remove that obstacle, and we'd never have had a President to the left of Reagan. Ever. Reagan was downright liberal compared to what the Democratic Party was before the Progressive infection took hold. Now we've invented more things to feel guilty about than we have dollars to pay for them, and still we have brainless zombies like Mickey actually believing that what we really need to do is print more money and all of our problems wil go away (the ones caused by Bush printing more money). Either that or just extend our middle fingers at our children even higher and go ahead and use up all of the other people's money right now so it's all gone in four years leaving them with no hope at all. There was a time when I could find it cute when people explained why they vote Democrat, and often it was even funny, but that time is past. For one thing, it's just not funny anymore, and for another thing Democratics have given up trying to explain why they vote the way they do, since it's become so obvious that it's their votes that have doomed us.
End of rant.
No offense to either of you intended, but I disagree. Strongly. You speak of "the general populace" as if they aren't every bit as divided as Washington. They are. You speak of "solutions" as if we the people agree on what the solutions are. We don't. Romney put his finger on the problem - half of us pay for the other half - and was crucified for it. And the paying half votes for one party and the non-paying half votes for the other party. Sure, there are exceptions, but they are about as rare as liberals on this forum, they don't have much to do with deciding many elections, and they about cancel each other out. For the most part, where the paying half is a majority Republicans win, and where the non-paying half is the majority the Democratic wins. There's little pockets of payers in Northern CA and NE that vote Democrat, and there's little pockets of non-payers that vote Republican in the South. But payer vs. non-payer is the central friction in this country, it has been since FDR, and it won't go away until the payers are in such a distinct minority that the Republicans no longer matter. Of course, when that day comes we will have officially run out of other people's money and the entire country won't matter anymore, but that's the inevitable end of the path we're on and it's the one that the Democratics are pushing us toward. The top 1% - the devil incarnate for our uniting President (PBUH) - pay nearly a quarter of the income taxes, and the Democratics tell us that they aren't paying their fair share. And when asked what is their fair share they won't answer, implying that there really is no upper bound. Ask Mickey. Hell, ask Dukie. No Democratic will, or can, ever answer that question. Until they do, and until they can pass the laugh test with their answer, speaking of Washington as if it is the problem is nonsense. Democratics are the problem.
And before anyone says that Republicans like Romney and Bush are the problem, too, ask yourself this: if only Republicans voted, what chance do you think Romney or Bush would have of being nominated for any position higher than dog catcher? We nominate Republicans like Romney and Bush because the people that the Republicans actually want to nominate can't possibly win. Remove that obstacle, and we'd never have had a President to the left of Reagan. Ever. Reagan was downright liberal compared to what the Democratic Party was before the Progressive infection took hold. Now we've invented more things to feel guilty about than we have dollars to pay for them, and still we have brainless zombies like Mickey actually believing that what we really need to do is print more money and all of our problems wil go away (the ones caused by Bush printing more money). Either that or just extend our middle fingers at our children even higher and go ahead and use up all of the other people's money right now so it's all gone in four years leaving them with no hope at all. There was a time when I could find it cute when people explained why they vote Democrat, and often it was even funny, but that time is past. For one thing, it's just not funny anymore, and for another thing Democratics have given up trying to explain why they vote the way they do, since it's become so obvious that it's their votes that have doomed us.
End of rant.