"Raising taxes IS a political act, but this alone won't solve the underlying problems. It has to be done along with lowering expenditures. And this won't be done while it is possible to have 'earmark' spending inserted into legislation.

"Earmarks are how politicians reward their political base. It allows them to milk the cow while we feed it. This is what tempted the ruling Republican party to abandon it's traditional fiscal responsibility. It is doubtful whether the soon-to-be-ruling Democratic party will fix it, once their feet are firmly planted in the government trough.

"Earmark-spending is the most serious structural flaw in our system. It has given special interests - such as military/industrial and pharmaceutical and oil/energy - far more power than they deserve. This inflated power financing Israeli and Christian fundamentalist fear and fervor has led us into our current disastrous war, an act of brutal stupidity that has destabilized the MidEast, weakened our nation, and unraveled a century of good will among our friends and neighbors. This war will take the lives of millions of innocent people before it can be sorted out.

"There may well be other causes for the 'Good America' and the 'Bad America'. But the power that 'earmark spending' gives sitting politicians produces a fundamental conflict of interest between the nation and it's government. Such a system cannot long stand."

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Stanley J Abbot [sjabbot@juno.com] wants a better way to find candidates than the current polarized system:

"The two political parties have become really confused and confusing. It seems there's too much at stake for real change.

"I believe that if there were to arise somehow a pro-life Democrat the voting demographics would change dramatically. There are those of us who agree with many of the issues of the Democrats, but cannot support abortion. In a discussion with my pro-choice cousin regarding this as a litmus test, we were able to come to an understanding that there are those that feel that this issue is as serious, if not more so, than slavery.

"How about coming up with better and more reliable ways of voting? It's difficult because we must vote for the person and their bag of values. Wouldn't it be helpful to be able to say, I'm voting for this value but not that one? Perhaps in an election we could vote yes/no for a set of issues rather than the person, and the person elected is the one that matches the results in the best way. Or there could be footnotes: I'm voting for you but I don't like your position on..."

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Rick Lamb [relamb@MidTechV.com] keeps thinking about work-ethics and asymmetric motivation:

"The American Dream comes out of the fact that this is the land of opportunity. You have the POTENTIAL to make something of yourself, to get an education, to get a job, to learn more, to move yourself up, to provide a product/service/idea that others find valuable and are willing to pay for.

"If you just want to be a mainstream consumer, show up for your dead-end job, spend your money on ring-tones and cheap Chinese goods from Wal-mart then you'll just end up living paycheck to paycheck while your job goes offshore to somebody a little more motivated. You'll be eking along while the super rich get richer off your credit card interest, and your desire to consume rather than to contribute.

"I think a lot of America's problems are that we're too used to the 'good life'. Increasingly I see middle class parents taking more and more care of their kids to the point of really spoiling them. Giving them things, not riding them to be their best, not setting a good example of working hard and saving. As a result, people are getting lazy. We aren't bettering ourselves, we're relying on somebody else to take care of us. We're stuck in a cycle of wanting to satisfy our immediate needs of consumption, instead of working/saving/investing in the future. So those who actually are successful can make a killing off the unmotivated masses.

"I think the 'asymmetric motivation' is one of the factors behind many failures. In the case of us folks here in the Industrial Midwest, most of our parents had solid steady jobs in post WWII manufacturing plants. The next generation enjoyed a lot of the benefits without having to sacrifice or struggle too much. Our right to consume overshadowed our obligation to produce or adapt.

"The rest of the world saw what we had and wanted to get it too. They're a little more motivated to get it, than we are to keep it. We've got enough man-hours, we've got enough unused brain capacity. We just don't have the discipline and motivation that it takes to do better."

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