You Call This Progress?

What can Americans expect if Republicans make significant gains in Congress after the coming November elections? Not only a doubling of the national deficit and a crippling of Social Security, health-care reform, and other important public-assistance programs, but a repeat of the government shutdown that so angered voters in the mid-1990s. It’s sad to think that the U.S. electorate may not have learned from the monumental GOP failures of the recent past.