Losing Faith in the U.S. Government

The debate about the wisdom of our foreign policy inspires passions on both sides of the political spectrum, but the debate about our domestic public policy is almost non-existant. Very few people even realize how things get done (or in most cases don't get done) in Congress. Our legislative policy is hatched in basement rooms on Capitol Hill and in secret meetings like Cheney's famous Energy Policy meeting. It's only when we experience a crisis like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina that the veil is temporarily removed and the hollow interior of our government is revealed. This is usually followed by stonewalling and media blitzs to convince us that what we've just seen with our own eyes isn't true and that everything is fine. The disaster in New Orleans was years in the making -- a pattern of indifference to the common good is at its core. Factcheck.org has the depressing statistics which reveal why it is naive to have any faith in our modern government systems: http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=344.