Which Party is to Blame?

I think you should have included a fourth answer to choose from in your question:

It's no one's fault; these things just happen. We have a bad economy because of economic and market forces, and also simply because no one has the money to buy anything. The strength of the buying power of the dollar is at its lowest level since the 1970s.

No.

While both parties are to blame, the Republicans are more to blame and have been making thing worse for years by insisting on deregulation and tax breaks for the rich. Unless people wake up and start calling them out on this, America will end up like Zimbabwe, Iraq and Libya with a rich elite backed by the military, and a massive underclass scrabbling for a life in the ruins and slums.

Things like taxes for the richest, and public welfare, put money in the hands of people who actually buy things, rather than send the money to Swiss bank accounts. Buying things stimulates the economy and creates jobs. Not the "trickle-down" BS the Republicans are peddling as excuses for helping their rich friends and corporate masters.

Agreed. Republicans have constantly favored the upper-crust of society and those folks' ability to control the rest of society. So the bankers and mortgage folks set up subprime mortgages, etc., for their own fiscal advantage and made tons of money. But the day came when it fell like a house of cards, and now lots of ordinary people are at a terrific disadvantage because those at the top were not sufficiently regulated by Congress after Republicans kept pushing for less and less regulation. Now the Republican attitude is to keep claiming it was the Democrats' fault AND that lower taxes for the rich will created jobs, even though the claim cannot be substantiated by historical evidece.

Two problems here: 1. The Republicans have tended to "put in" with the Christian Right, yet lie through their teeth about how we got to where we are AND about how lower taxes on the rich will created more jobs. What do these people forget about the eighth commandment, the one about bearing false witness?

1. All the while lots of Republicans were yelling about moral values as critical, they were subtly using that as a way of control. Now that they need a candidate who can WIN, they seem more and more ready to put in with Gingrich, despite his moral failures and problems, as though moral problems are not so important after all. So it's clear: their use of "Christian morals" was not for the sake of the morals but for the sake of controlling others with religion UNTIl the time has come that religion is no longer helpful and thus no longer becomes a basis of control. NOW they no longer need religion and move to something else as a way of control. They were lying all the time about the importance of religion.

   Obama may not be perfect, but at least we don't get this kind of control at any cost attitude out of him, including the use of religion as a "hammer" for control purposes.

Sam

I agree that maybe there should be an option that no one is to blame, but even if there were, I would not select it. It is both parties fault, as well as the people who select them: in a country this size, it's less about being able to govern as it is being able to convince people to vote for you. As a result, both parties have created false dillemas based on the premise that their viewpoints are the only way, that there is no other way but their party's way. Example: I believe in fiscal conservatism. I do not believe that I am infinitely responsible for people who can or will not work, and that we cannot base a budget around that. However, if I stand up and say "I am conservative," I also have to agree with stuff like "I believe religion should be in schools, I believe that the government should ban gay marriage, I believe that we should project military force against anyone who has ever harbored or expressed dislike for America, ever," things that I do not believe, nor do I believe have anything to do with the issue of "how individuals and the government should spend their money (save the last statement)." I believe in personal freedom: I believe that someone's sexuality, or sex, should not prohibit them from equally experiencing the freedoms and responsibilities granted to us under the Constitiution. I can't in good conscience stand up and say "I am a liberal", because I don't agree with laws designed to "protect women," beyond laws which say that women are citizens, and all citizens are afforded this protection. Nor do I believe in laws that compel people to extend their hard earned taxes to illegal non-citizens, so that said illegal non citizens can participate in social programs that are probably a bad idea anyway, but ill funded for citizens of the US, let alone people who aren't even paying into the system. Every time something bad happens, we don't need "a new law", or to declare a new "protected class.": sometimes the problem is properly enforcing the laws we do have. And just because I support the freedom to go Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve or even Adam, Eve, and Steve, doesn't mean that I think that this goes hand in hand with mandatory disarmament. I know a long time ago, a guy gave mixing kind words and deeds with guns a bad name, but in all seriousness, I don't think that kind words and guns are necessarily mutually exclusive.

The problem is, when I go to vote, I'm not allowed to think, I'm not given the option. Either I vote for the guy who has the right mixture of bible beating, homophobic, xenophobic, wealth horading, militant nationalism going for him, or the guy who has the right mixture of socialist, totalitarian, socially paranoid, reverse sexist and racist, mass powered tyranny going for him. There is no "group with the most good ideas" party: either it's Republican or Democrat, and you either vote for one of them or you're basically throwing your vote away. So yeah, I blame both groups, because neither one represents me, or even comes close.

More taxes means fewer jobs. Your contention that the "rich" send all their money to "Swiss bank accounts" just illustrates your total ignorance of how financial markets work. The rich already pay more than their fair share. The top one tenth of one percent pays 37 percent of all federal income tax that this country collects. One one thousandth of the population is financing more than one third of the federal government. The top 50% of earners already pays 99% of the federal taxes collected. Welfare programs do nothing but encourage slothfulness and created multigenerational dependence on government handouts. The Democrats know this and cater to this along with catering to silly, unproven tree-hugger environmental policies that destroy business and jobs.

BTW, take a look at who Obama's biggest financial supporters are. It's that 1 percent the OWS crowd whines about. They really won't be hurt by higher taxes, but the "ten percenters", those who run small businesses and create jobs, will.