Shak,
Trying to answer your question about the lack of a "true" third party, my guess is that it's all about money or lack thereof. Our most recent best chance was Ross Perot.
Now that we appear to know information about the "DEAL", I'm extremely disappointed. I always believed and still believe that there should have been spending cuts along with increases on the revenue side / AKA the "balanced approach". For whatever reason, the latter was dropped for purposes of passing this legislation.
For better or worse, we do have a recent equivalent of a new party or perhaps a sub-set of an existing party. It's called the "Tea Party" and it scares the hell out of me.
Reminds be of the "She's a Witch" scene from the Holy Grail.
I think many people, years from now, will be asking themselves "be careful what you ask for, you might get it" as the short / long term impacts of cost cutting, absent any rational analysis of the impact(s) of those cuts, becomes reality.
The looming giant now, IMO, is that spending cuts will cause a weak recovery to become totally anemic, or worse, a return to recession. Remember what happened in the mid 1930's?
GG
