Recently a poll cited that 70 percent of Americans thought the nation was going in the wrong direction. Really? Why are the other 30 percent unable to see the truth of that anger?

In case any nationally elected official happens to care, and that seems highly unlikely, here are a few reasons why our political leaders are failing Americans:

1. Both the debt and deficit are out of control in America. The Great Recession has made this true in most developed nations, but we always have to overachieve and are working hard to have the largest excess of fiscal insanity.

And yet neither Democrats nor Republicans will talk frankly about solving the problem. Democrats say they will end the tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans, saving nearly $800 billion in debt over the next decade.

Good for them, but extending the rest of that tax cut will create over $3 trillion in new debt over the decade. Hardly a move towards fiscal sanity. And Democrats say virtually nothing about where spending cuts can take place.

Republicans want to make permanent all the tax cuts, cuts that will create $4 trillion in new federal debt over the next decade. That is also irresponsible when we need to end the deficits, not expand them. And while Republicans freely talk about cutting spending none of them will say what they would cut.

Why won’t they tell us? It is remarkably simple; they have to cut programs people like and value, and if they tell voters that before this election, voters will not support them.

2. NAFTA, GATT and CAFTA are destroying the American middle class and our political class seems entirely unwilling to reverse the destruction. In Ohio General Electric closed its last incandescent bulb factory this year in a shift to better technology. But after closing many plants no new ones opened here. Instead the international corporation that has offices in America shifted all these jobs to China.

These jobs are not coming back, they are gone for good, like so many other living wage jobs in America.

Democrats in northern states, hit hardest by the trade agreements, talk about ending the agreements every election season but do nothing to actually stop the flow of jobs out of the U.S. Republicans so fully embrace free trade that they do not talk about changing these agreements at all.

3. Our politicians seem to be employees of big business and big lobbyists. This fall, before congress adjourned, fund raisers were held by corporations and special interest groups for virtually every elected official.

The outside special interest groups raise money because that gives them more access to congress people than you can have with your $3 campaign contribution. And now, for the first time, we are seeing the effects of the recent Supreme Court decision, granting corporations the free speech rights that individual humans have.

The result? An explosion of spending in support of corporations supporting candidates who serve their interests and against any candidate who might regulate or tax big business or big labor.

Americans need elected officials to seriously work to balance the budget and reduce the debt, not make rhetorical claims unsupported by the facts. We need the trade agreements that are killing our jobs stopped. And we need politicians who actually work for the citizens, not their rich fund-raising sponsors.

The Great Recession will end, but the middle class will not recover until these changes take place. We should all be Mad as Hell and won’t take it anymore.

Jim Crawford is a contributing columnist for The Tribune and a former educator at Ohio University Southern.