Watching the political process play out is more discouraging each election cycle. Even the freshest faces in the field eventually descend to the level that handlers and pollsters tell them they must in order to win: criticizing other candidates in the same party (many of whom they’ll have to work with later if they win); blaming the current administration or the opposing party for all of society’s ills; demonizing half the country; and promising the other half of everything for free.

And the excuses. Oh, the excuses that we hear for why we have problems.

The left’s favorite go-to excuse these days is “racism.” But the greatest problem facing the United States today is not racism; it is the disappearance of the can-do attitude that built the country. Some call it the “entrepreneurial spirit” or the “American dream,” but at its core, it is simply an attitude that every problem has a solution, and the determination to find or create it.

We’ve lost the sense of individual responsibility for our problems, and that’s bad enough. But what’s worse, we’re losing faith in our ability to solve our problems. This acquired sense of helplessness is catastrophic, and it has paralyzed large swaths of the American public — rural, urban and suburban.

Weeks after the water had receded from Hurricane Katrina, leaving a devastated New Orleans, I saw a photograph of a woman whose car was still overturned in her front yard. I remember thinking, how much effort does it take for a few people to get together and turn that woman’s car back over for her? Something so simple, and yet no one had done it. It is so much easier to blame your mayor, your congressional representative, your senators or the president of the United States.

Last week’s outrage was “rat-infested” Baltimore. All over the media, we’ve seen footage of buildings in disrepair, piles of rotting trash, rodents running amuck and residents calling for government help. Here’s a question: What would be done if there were no government to rely upon? Would neighbors band together and clean up the trash and messes that attract vermin? Would they rebuild decaying buildings? Or would they just live in squalor forever?

Encouraging dependence upon government not only creates generations of helpless people; it inures them to government’s ineffectiveness. Once government gets involved, the costs of doing anything skyrocket. Layers of bureaucracy hamper citizens’ ability to solve their own problems without this permit or that license. Endless meetings take place to discuss countless studies. Eventually, those who discuss solutions become more important than those who produce them.

The focus on government as societal savior also feeds the illusion of one-size-fits-all solutions, which inevitably fail. Why? Because what’s needed to improve educational outcomes in rural Appalachia, for example, will not be the same as what’s needed in south central Los Angeles or the border regions of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.