The July 28 issue of Time Magazine reported the results of a poll by the Rockefeller Foundation, which revealed that 85% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. That percentage climbs dramatically when the polling sample is limited to ethnic populations. More than half of Generation Y, according to the poll, had to borrow money just to survive last year. None of this is at all shocking to me, except when asked about the solution to these problems, respondents overwhelmingly agreed that Government Expansion is the answer. 70% said that government programs should be helping more people, and 82% said they favor public works projects.

This, in the face of 78% who believe their financial future is at greater risk now than in the past. I’m led to wonder if respondents were asked if they knew whether government was spending more money now than in the past. I would be very surprised if such a question didn’t reveal that Americans believe the government is actually spending less. The fact is that the United States Federal Budget has consistently grown throughout the past under 2 different administrations.

From 1992 to 2000, President Clinton’s budgets grew from 1.4 trillion to 1.8 trillion, and under President Bush, spending has further grown to 3.1 trillion dollars (for 2009). Where do Americans think this money is coming from? It’s coming from us. We’ve been funding the expansion of government steadily, and, now that we’re at the point where nearly all Americans have lost hope in the “American Dream,” what do we propose to do? The exact same thing we’ve been doing.

The problem, at least in part, seems to be one of perception. Americans think the government hasn’t been doing enough for them, when, in reality, it’s been doing more and more. And whether we put a Republican or a Democrat in the White House next year, it’s unlikely that anything will change in that regard. Why can’t more Americans embrace the concept of a broader exchange of ideas? If things are going so horribly wrong, why is this nation about to nominate two of the most homogenized, shapeless candidates to choose between to fix things?

What I’m asking, really, is why we can’t be more open to multiple candidates with more radical ideas. Anytime a candidate comes forward with a non-mainstream proposal for change, he’s called a crackpot, and he gets shut down by these very same people who are lamenting about the state of things. We keep going back to the same genetic pool of mediocrity for new leaders, and it feeds into Americans’ complacency. If we keep doing this, things will worsen. I’ve no doubt about that.