The budget deficit is simple. Cut spending. Drastically. If Congress isn't passing new bills, they shouldn't be spending money. I realize that is unrealistic, and they'll keep doing it anyway, but you seem to be under the delusion that I want anything from Congress, that I accept the absurd idea that they are necessary to run anything or that they should be spending money on even 10% of the things they do spend money on.
As the system stands, Senators are responsible to the electorate, and should answer directly to them. If their "principles" are not consistent with re-election, that's their tough luck, so they can bloody well swallow the negative ads, as long as they are not slanderous or libelous (of which both US laws and English common law set plenty of precedents for practice as to make tinkering with free speech unnecessary at best, and immoral & tyrannical at worst).

I WOULD prefer the 17th Amendment be repealed, which would seem to suit the Evan Bayhs who would no longer have to suffer the indignities of running for re-election, and it would suit me, because it would make the Senators answerable to the State governments which would increase their power relative to the Federal government. I do NOT trust the voters either, and deplore that the masses have control of over both Houses of the legislature. When you get down to it, the Senate is actually redundant as things stand. The point of separation of powers and checks and balances is to spread political power and authority into as diverse an array of sources as possible. Direct election of Senators overloads the power of the people and has completely emasculated the States.

As for your ridiculous insinuation that I must have some sort of agenda I want to see pushed through, why don't you cite some hypothetical legislation I would be in favor of, or that I would value above my constitutionalist principles? Sen. Bayh gives examples of Senators cutting through the BS in extreme cases, and as far as I am concerned, that is all that the federal government is there for. As for the functions of the country that are hindered by the government's infighting, that result is the fault of the government arrogating to itself those extraconstitutional functions in the first place. And on the other hand, much of the economic troubles have nothing to do with Congress, and everything to do with the Federal Reserve, which is an example of Congress shirking its actual responsibilities. In short, I am glad to see them not functioning because some things they have no business doing, and other things they have removed from their own purview. So the hell with them all.

And for your rhetorical blather about seeing the whole thing fall apart - why can you not accept that the fates of a pack of wealthy lawyers is beyond indifference to me? Life will go on, with or without the US Congress, and if there are some unpleasant consequences, well, everything has consequences. That's life, and in general, people will get by even if the government falls apart. I am completely opposed to further unconstitutional usurpations on their part in order to keep problems they have started from drowning us. Why don't YOU tell me what is to be so feared about the failure of the national government?

And regarding my "absolutist" positions, I find the inability of people to find the core guiding principle at the heart of an issue and stick to it to be a despicable form of cowardice and intellectual laziness, and suspiciously akin to an attempt to be popular rather than face hard truths. You and yours have no real princples, or rather, they depend entirely on whose ox is being gored. You shift and adjust based on what is "nicest" or for some sort of distorted perception of "reasonable." Your implied notion that, in the most important issues, in the most powerful forum, core values and principles should be MOST susceptible to scuttling and disintegrating is completely inverse to any sane notion of reality. Right is right and wrong is wrong, ESPECIALLY in the weilding of great power and ESPECIALLY when the most people or largest sums of money are at stake! You seem to be saying that it's okay to stick to what is right where it is unimportant, but on life or death issues, or in allocating large amounts of money or exerting great force, then you can waffle and equivocate and succumb. I honestly cannot grasp this rationale.