What two vital features of American national life are inordinately costly compared to any other country, no longer deliver world-beating results, are increasingly inequitable, are highly dysfunctional, and elicit growing anger from much of the country's population?

It's not a trick question, but the very fact of these parallels is...

America's $9.3-trillion-and-growing national debt rightly has been blamed for many economic ills that lurk on our nation's horizon, but it also had the stealth effect of further eroding Americans' waning belief in the benefits, efficacy, and trustworthiness of government. Many other, oft-mentioned factors -- Vietnam, Watergate, anti-government rhetoric, and a...