Craig, there are some good books on the current US job market as it relates to jobs, wages, family incomes. When people can't get work they are given money, as in most countries, and a looming social issue is a legislated "living wage."
No one here likes spongers and laggards. A modern society doesn't leave its citizens high and dry when the deserving are shut out of the work force because of lack of skills, poor education, criminal records, racist attitudes etc.
About a third of all state prison inmates and more than half of federal prison inmates in 2010 were drug offenders. I recommend On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City (University of Chicago Press) by Alice Goffman.
There are times when the US needs a little dose of the parliamentary system and regulations, and this is one of them. Leaders with majorities do things, implement their policies. Their test of performance is elections.
All we see are the US wonders of checks and balances producing lame ducks, unwarranted obstruction, dysfunctional governance and executive privilege---the notion of a superpower president doing what he was elected to do.
Oh, my, the horror.
