Annoyed again, naturally

In the last 4 years, the actual deficit, the actual amount over tax revenue the government is spending per year, has gone down. The debt has increased, but that is not the same as the deficit. So actual government spending, even with the stimulus (whether you believe it was effective or not) was reduced.
At this stage, tax reform, as a practice in reduction of institutionalized corruption (people getting tax breaks because someone gave money to, or voted for, a politician or party) needs to be instituted.
And usury laws. That's the biggest drain on savings. Unchecked, unregulated credit charges, and the legal remedies there to, that can be changed in the fine print of the billing paperwork.
Think of it as corporate taxation with corporate representation.
Think of Black Friday and the consumer culture it promotes as corporate America's denationalization and secularization of America.
Credit cards and home loans are basically the company store of the 21st century. Throw in reverse mortgages, are causing the elderly to lose their one tangible asset, and the housing bubble as the corporate world getting bitten on its bottom for trying to provide company housing by foreclosure and purchase by rental companies leading to a future of serfdom where in they, the land holders, who own the loans the rental companies use to finance their rental properties-- landlords for the landlords ...
Okay. That's a little far, but you'll notice that the companies that provided the credit authorizations for the subprime loans are not only still in business, but still providing credit ratings, and still authorizing loans for their banking partners, while the home owners who got loans they couldn't afford, only because they were approved by those banking institutions, are still being foreclosed on and vilified as deadbeats by the common man.
That's good advertising. Madoff needed to hire that PR team instead of lawyers. Then, like the banks and fellow travelers, he would have been given a pass by the States Attorneys Generals and congress would have given him matching funds.