Today being the single most non-productive work day in my professional life, I had time to ponder the ineptitude with witch our elected officials are managing the country’s business. As we march on towards midnight on the east coast, a few words come to mind. Among them are pathetic, inexcusable, farcical, shameful, and just plain disgusting. Watching these “representatives” of the people allow the government to slip minute by minute towards shutdown, insolvency, and deadlock should be disheartening to anyone who goes to work every day and is actually expected to get their job done.

A friend posted something on my Facebook wall this morning, that I think sums it up better than I can at the moment: “Other countries may have coups, revolutions, and collapses, but a government so deadlocked it simply ceases to function seems to be an exclusively American phenomenon.” The quote is attributed to Foreign Policy, and it should be plastered on all of our minds the next time we head to the polls. That the government of our republic can be thrown into this kind of turmoil by congressional inability to accomplish one of the few tasks specifically assigned to it by the Constitution would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic.

I’m embarrassed for them… and for us.