America's Love-Hate Relationship with Government

Further evidence that we're becoming the United States of Having Our Cake and Eating It, Too: A Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation survey shows that even those Americans who say they want more limited government also call Social Security and Medicare "very important" and want the feds to be involved in education, reducing poverty -- and, in the case of almost half of respondents -- regulating health care.

The survey is a study in contradictions: Nearly half of those polled say government threatens their personal liberties. One in five say it's now impossible for the government to be well-run, given the problems facing the country. At the same time, respondents also said they wanted their elected representatives to fight for more spending for their districts and expressed broad support for government action in the areas of defense, health care and helping the poor.

All of which sends the following message to the politicians on whom voters tend to focus their anger: Good luck.