[In some respects I think that a person that has no political interest or affiliation, and is already set financially, is the sort of person that we need for a few terms.
I think you're right but I think it applies in a lot more places than Washington. In Canada, England, pretty much anywhere in the world, there are too many people running things in government who have never been anything except politicians. There just aren't enough who had a real job, or achieved anything in a competitive environment.
....there's too much greed, everyone is looking out for their own interests, and to get anything done requires an amount of cooperation. The greedy ones realize this and see it as an opportunity, and the entire system becomes filled with pork as a result.
Right again. I don't recall off-hand who it was, but one commentator said that it seemed that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats got what they wanted. This person was probably right but it points out the problem - no one was getting what the majority of the American people wanted.
I kind of like what happened recently in canada where the whole lot got flushed and re-elected.
It's not a perfect system here either. Although we have a majority government that will be able to enact legislation without too much fuss, the "majority" part only means they have the most seats. It does not mean they represent the majority of Canadians.
The way the electoral boundaries work, we have a "majority" government that only garnered 40% of the votes.
ryck