Before you can have any legitimate position concerning anything you first have to assume that deep down our representatives from both sides of the aisle have some realistic reason and motivation for their position on issues. People need to keep in mind that representatives of both parties were voted into office because of their campaign promises.
The residents of each state have their own reason for who they vote for. For instance, coal mining states will vote for a representative who will defend the use of coal because this is how many people are employed and it is a huge revenue for that state while California often votes for EPA supporters who are against the use of coal. This immediately causes a huge divide between those two state's representatives.
States trying to get their budgets under control are the ones who are trying to decrease the collective bargaining power of public sector unions. These states have no way to pay for these ballooning benefits. These states also lost money in 2008 when investments were altered by the near meltdown and revenue is down due to unemployment while they are also paying more for Medicaid and unemployment payments to those people. Other states like IL and CA have raised their state taxes to cover these costs but now businesses are on a trek out of those states so they won't get new revenue from higher taxes. Caterpillar is leaving IL because of this. 23k high paying jobs will be leaving the state. Issues like this even effect how those Congressmen and Senators will vote on the budget because the budget is divided with little fingers going all over the country.
Most people tend to think all of this is due to federal concerns and think the president has much more to do with things than they actually do. That is why these arguments about Democrats and Republicans make such fools of all of us. Politics is local. The representatives are supposed to do what is needed for the country and their ideology has no place in the mix. They should be looking at what works and what doesn't. They have that info at their fingertips.
Demonizing the other side for realizing we can't continue to spend trillions of dollars we don't have or saying that not doing so will lead to people dying; these kinds of arguments just make fools of us all. Not having enough sense to know that pensions for the baby boom generation just ready to retire is unfunded and that the problem won't go away by ignoring it is just denial. I know that when people just defend positions based on party, they have no idea about how politics works. They just watch TV or listen to radio which does nothing but create controversy and idealism with no explanation of the complications behind it.
I frankly dislike both parties for their political games at this time. Our country is changing and rather than focusing on the real reasons, people are so busy hating each other, they are missing the forrest for the trees.