Earlier this month, Cornell University student Elliot Mandel wrote and recorded himself singing a song about how much he loathes the U.S. government.  Titled “You Are My Congress” and set to the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” the YouTube musical rant expresses Mandel’s frustration with politicos in the wake of the debt ceiling debacle.

As the chorus of the song goes, “You are my Congress, my only Congress.  You make me sad I voted for you.  You’ll never know how much I hate you.  Please don’t get reelected next year.”

While sung off-key, Mandel’s anti-government ballad appears to be a pitch-perfect representation of the public’s historically high level of disgust with partisan politics.  Many students, it seems, share in this disgust.  In the weeks leading up to the last-minute debt ceiling deal and during its immediate aftermath, NextGen Journal posted an array of undergraduates’ opinions on the negotiations and larger state of American politics.  Their verdict: These are dark days for the country– and the younger generation that politicians forever claim to be fighting for.

“This standoff is exactly what makes people hate politics,” Penn State University senior Michael Oplinger wrote roughly a week before a final compromise was reached.  “It’s the fighting, the blaming, the whining and, most importantly, the lack of any actual accomplishments. . . . The standoff has just about broken my faith in our system.  If I wrote this column based on pure reaction, it would be filled with far too many expletives to print. . . . [I]f this debate is a sign of how our government will deal with issues in the future, the system truly is finished.”

In separate pieces, students spread the blame fairly equally among President Barack Obama, the GOP leadership, and the Tea Party insurgency.  For his part, Matthew Hurt, a sophomore political science major at Virginia Tech University, believes Obama’s handling of the situation is simply another sign of the president’s fiscal wrongheadedness.  “All of the economic decisions he makes directly affect what kind of economy we will inherit, and it doesn’t help that every economic decision this man makes is a bad one,” Hurt argues <> .  “Our future is hanging in the balance.  As long as Obama is in office, the economy we will soon inherit remains very questionable at best.”

Meanwhile, University of Notre Dame sophomore Allan Joseph writes that he sees the Republican Party slipping from the principles he once admired about it.  “Republicans have pushed the country to the brink of the most avoidable economic disaster in recent history,” he contends in a column titled “The GOP is Losing Me.”  “They have refused to govern responsibly even when America gave them power; they would rather pander and mislead. . . . I don’t particularly like the Democrats either, but I’m afraid the Republicans have left me no choice.  They should be afraid that my generation agrees with me.”

Beyond pointing fingers, the current crop of students appears to most passionately agree that this whole sordid governmental mess has left their generation’s fiscal futures bleaker than Cuba Gooding Jr.’s movie career.  “Our generation has been thrown under the bus by both sides, and I fear even the best-case political scenario will still result in a sluggish economy for young Americans to be thrown into,” Syracuse University student Luke Lanciano writes.  “Something has to give with the youth of this country; either it’s our hope and idealism, or it’s the political status quo.”

Or as Mandel sings to Congress on YouTube, “This debt ceiling issue has shown your true colors.  You can’t be trusted with my economy.”

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