With one year remaining before the 2012 elections, the national crisis of confidence continues.  Much of it is fueled by what is shaping up to be the longest period of economic stagnation since the Great Depression — not to mention what might be a parallel benchmark in skepticism toward our governing class in Washington.

That skepticism, to be sure, has not been confined to the Democratic Party.  After having control of both chambers of Congress from 2003 to 2006, Republicans lost the elections of 2006 and 2008, and plenty of the party’s political wounds were self-inflicted.  For all the escalating partisan acrimony and dysfunction in Washington, domestic discretionary spending during the 2000’s rose faster than at any time since the 1960’s, leaving many Republicans demoralized at the sight of their own party abandoning principle.  A commitment not to repeat past mistakes should be a requirement for every Republican going forward.

Yet for all the stumbles the GOP made, the price all Americans have paid for Washington’s incompetence has only increased over the past three years.  When the Obama administration and its allies in the then-Democratic Congress argued for a stimulus bill in 2009, it included the promises that unemployment would not top eight percent if the bill were passed; that jobs would be created immediately; and that by the end of this year, unemployment would be around six percent.  Nearly three years later, unemployment has only gone up, hovering over nine percent, and that figure does not factor in the underemployed and those who stopped looking.

To quote the inspiring words of a Democratic president 50 years ago — “ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country” — is to remind ourselves how much that party’s leadership has changed.  Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and her Democratic colleagues have shown themselves less likely to follow such advice than to demagogue those who would do so.  Under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, Congress pretty much institutionalized a culture of bailouts and a governing style that amounts to giving your money to the politically connected classes who seek it.  A government already unable to meet its obligations had yet another entitlement, Obamacare, heaped upon it.

That may be a strategy for securing votes to stay in office, but as policy, it has been a disaster.  When irresponsible decisions are rewarded, misconduct proliferates, and the most vulnerable people suffer the most.  To that category of the most vulnerable we can now add the next generation.  The national debt, the figure perhaps most reflective of the mortgage on their future, is now approaching $15 trillion.  That figure marks more than a 40 percent increase above an already towering $10.6 trillion at the start of the Obama presidency.  At this rate of debt accumulation, an eight-year Obama administration would accumulate more debt than every president during the preceding 220 years, from George Washington to George W. Bush.  In a recent interview, the president even admitted regarding the people who have become skeptical, “I don’t think they’re better off than they were four years ago.”

Perhaps the greatest sign of the ideological bankruptcy of the dominant party in Washington is the response (and lack thereof in some cases) of Democratic leaders to the Occupy Wall Street protests, which have spread to cities across the nation.  The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ fundraising committee chaired by Rep. Steve Israel, circulated a petition that aimed for “100,000 strong standing with Occupy Wall Street.”  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi remarked, “I support the message to the establishment” sent by the protesters.  What message would that be?  What is emerging is a confused combination of anarchism and calls to swell the role of the very government being protested.  No doubt a good number of the protesters come with respectful intentions, but too many have behaved with conduct too nefarious to escape censure: reports of sexual assaults, robberies, drug use, vandalism, and using public parks as bathrooms are numerous.  They reflect an innate disrespect for the law.  So does the blocking of public streets, a gesture of gratuitous intimidation.  Expressions of anti-Semitism also have become too numerous to ignore.  Just this past Friday, a group of protesters marched on the Israeli consulate in Boston chanting “Long live the Intifada!” and occupied the building’s lobby.  You need only scan some of the videos posted on YouTube from the preceding weeks of protests to find even uglier language.  How offensive must the situation get before Democratic leaders withdraw their support of the protesters?

Under our system, it typically takes two cycles of public discontent for a party to assume control of the federal government.  For the Democrats, that occurred in 2006 and 2008.  For the Republicans, there is a good chance 2012 will complete the process that began in 2010.  Many Americans who appreciate deep down in their bones the preciousness of our democracy fear that what we value most is in peril.  They seek serious leadership.  There is a lot of work to do over the next year, and then the real challenge begins after election day, when a new generation of leaders will hopefully renew the fight for our country’s future.

Frank Scaturro is a former Counsel for the Constitution on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives in New York’s 4^th Congressional District.