With the estimated cost of the election being 6 Billion Dollars, there is no way a candidate can come away without serious obligations to their contributors. This alone skews any fair representation a candidate might wish to have going into the race. Washington has become a money pit and bureaucracy grows like a cancer, devouring more and more money and doling out favors. There is little incentive to curb spending when legislators have and open checkbook with taxpayers money. When it runs dry, they simply raise taxes, print more money, or borrow. Candidates are sold to the public with sound bites and catchy phrases. In reality much of the voting public has only a thin slice of information. We are often too busy with our own immediate concerns rather than the big picture, and feel we are helpless to change the state of affairs. Welfare, Social Security, Medicare are just a few of the huge money pots people are scheming to get their hands on, and it is working. Fraud, mismanagement and lack of over-sight plague an otherwise good idea. Shipping our industry overseas and trade imbalance is killing our economy and allowing outsiders to have a greater say in our democracy. The poor are becoming helpless and homeless as big banks and wealthy investors become more greedy in robbing the people. All the while pocketing billions and billions, and protected by government bail-outs when their schemes unravel. America is sliding down the slippery slope. Even a perfect plan and a unified nation would take years to dig out of the hole we are now in. It is almost as if we are doomed to fail. The upside is that our economy not only affects us, but the world as well. It is in the best interest of the world the USA does not fail. It might take a miracle. A single party or president did not put us where we are, we did, over a long time. We allowed it to happen with our changing values, priorities, and demand for instant gratification. Please share your comments.