Heather, I agree with you, in part.
Where I disagree with you is in your description of the Democrat Party. By no means is the Democrat Party kind-hearted or well-meaning. It is the home of communism in the USA, and caring about the human condition has nothing to do with it. That party wants all of us worshipping the government, and individual achievement is already severely punished by that party's policies.
Now, here's where I agree with you. Up through Reagan, I supported the Republican Party, mainly because it wasn't the Democrat Party. Later, I switched to supporting the Libertarian Party, because the Republicans talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk, so-to-speak. Simply being the opposition to the Democrats is not sufficient. The Republican Party must actually stand for capitalism, or it is no better than the Democrat Party.
Unfortunately, we have a situation in which both of our two major parties want to stay in power more than anything else. At least the Democrats are still committed to driving us toward totalitarian socialism. They want to take away our weapons, force us to use politically correct speech, take away our freedom of religious expression, tell us which doctors and hospitals we must use and keep medical records on each of us, and they intend to tax us into the ground to achieve these goals, as well as making each citizen an expendable asset of the governmnet. The Republicans are supposed to be for preserving our rights, limiting the scope and size of government to the bare essentials required by the Constitution, and collecting only a tiny fraction of what we earn to provide for the nation's infrastructure. All the Republicans seem to care about now is keeping up with the Democrats, and they are driving away former supporters, like Heather and myself.
Our government should have a balanced budget requirement. Deficit spending should not be allowed, and we should never have a national debt. Our tax rates are far too high because government (at all levels) spends far too much, trying to please everyone with every handout, special interest, and pet project (pork) imaginable. There's no reason any American taxpayer should be taxed more than 5%, be it income tax or sales tax, from all levels of government combined.
The fact that 5% seems too low to most citizens (and certainly the politicians) is a sad commentary. As a nation, we've become so used to begging from the government, that we couldn't imagine providing for ourselves. Yes, the Democrats got us started down this path, but the Republicans have done nothing (except a little song and dance on occasion) to correct the situation, so they are also guilty. The Republicans have control of the Congress, yet no one has proposed a serious bill to get rid of horrible tax-sucking programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the National Endowment for the Arts, etc. They haven't proposed getting rid of all of our blatantly unconstitutional gun laws, either, yet they claim to support our Second Amendment rights.
It's not a bad thing to want to help others who can't help themselves or to promote art in our culture. What's bad is expecting government to be the means by which we do those things. Private citizens can take care of themselves and each other just fine without inefficient and uncaring government involvement. I won't go into another full-blown anti-socialism rant here, but as long as we have a government that takes our money away from us in such large quantities to do "good things for us," without the accountability of a balanced budget requirement, we will always have fiscal problems. We have what we have because the people have spoken. They have voted for corrupt politicians because they are corrupt themselves. They want minimum wage laws and unions that artificially drive up wages, yet they bitch and moan when companies move jobs overseas to cut costs, and they get bent out-of-shape when someone calls them communists or socialists.
We can't have it both ways. Jane is right when she says we need some common sense in government. Unfortunately, Heather is right when she blames the citizens for not already having put true statesmen (and stateswomen) in power. I think there are good candidates out there, and I'm not afraid to vote for small party candidates and independent candidates. Unfortunately, most citizens who would like change don't want to risk voting for candidates who they think will lose, and they allow themselves to be confined to the two major parties, who are growing more irresponsible with our money and our rights each year. Our government is always a reflection of our society, so unless we can get the people to take action and demand real change through the voting booths, we won't see any change.