Electorate Angry but Is Not Willing to Sacrifice : Deficit: Public sees budget crisis as a sign that the federal government cannot function any more. It balks at paying more taxes to solve problem.

Listen to the voices of angry voters:

“They are all to blame. Get them all out . . . .”

“The only people who will get hurt by shutting down the government are us people down at the bottom . . . .”

“I don’t follow current events, but I know from basic common sense that there are some things you just don’t do. You don’t shut down the government.”

Interviews here show that there is real, ready-to-spit anger over the failure of Congress and the White House to reduce the budget deficit and over the threatened shutdown of the government. The interviews disclose also an ambivalence about the choices facing the nation’s leaders: Everyone seems to want the problems solved but few expressed willingness to take on added taxes to pay for the solutions.

“What would I tell them (Congress and the President) if I could?” wondered Tom McNeely, a sales representative for a medical research firm, as he watched a Columbus Day parade in downtown Baltimore. “I’d tell them to get off their behinds and get going and do something. They had to know this was coming.”

“I think the American people are saying we’ve had enough of this,” added Bonnie Dezwart, from nearby Severn, Md.

To Joe Martin, a Baltimore bartender with a wry sense of humor, the budget mess in Congress is so ridiculous it’s funny. “It’s like being in a sinking boat and arguing over how to fix the holes, hour after hour after hour.”

Added Martin more somberly: “This is really embarrassing that we have elected a government that can’t get it together. How could you explain this to someone from another country?”

In fact, to voters living here, a world apart from the budget wrangling, the politicians in Washington seem to be living down to all of their expectations.

“I’m just disgusted with it,” said Charles Frolich of Baltimore. “They go through this every year and they never make anything better. We just keep going deeper into debt.

“Now, I think the attitude here is, here they go again--same old thing.”

Indeed, cynicism and apathy about the federal government have reached such heights that most people interviewed here said that they have no idea who represents them in the House of Representatives, the crucible for many of the budget battles of the last few weeks.

And none knew that two of the area’s House members, Reps. Helen Delich Bentley (R-Md.) and Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.)--the first a conservative white suburbanite and the second a liberal black Democrat from the central city--voted early Friday against the budget package that had emerged from the bipartisan budget negotiations between the White House and Congress.

Bentley’s office said that she received about 500 calls about the budget last week, the majority from apparently well-organized senior citizens upset about proposed cuts in Medicare benefits.

But most people interviewed here said that they do not believe they could help clear up the mess by writing their representatives in Congress.

In fact, reflecting what appears to be a national sentiment, many in Baltimore seemed to share a nagging feeling that the budget mess is just the latest sign that the federal government is not working any more and that it no longer can be counted on to improve the lives of average Americans.

“I don’t get interested because I think the whole thing is messed up,” said 19-year-old Tina Lutzi of Baltimore. “Most of my friends ignore it, too. To tell you the truth, I don’t know who my congressman is. Maybe, if they made some major decision, people might remember them.”

Baltimore, home to thousands of federal workers at the headquarters of the Social Security Administration, is heavily reliant on the government for its economic well-being. Thus, it is clear to everyone here that this is not just a Washington problem.

Yet, just as they are screaming for action from Washington, there is also a strong sense of ambivalence among voters here that clearly mirrors the political contradictions that have led to the stalemate in Congress.

Although they believe that the government deficit must be brought under control, few say that they would be willing to sacrifice personally to see that happen.

Bonnie Dezwart and her husband, Arnold, for example, find it hard to believe that Congress cannot reduce the deficit. Yet neither believes they should have to pay higher taxes for the gasoline they use for their $55,000 boat moored in Baltimore harbor. Bonnie says that they already pay $400 a year for fuel and that higher gas taxes might force them to shorten their boating season.

“I think our taxes are too high and Bush’s proposals were ludicrous,” said Mrs. Dezwart. “We are upper middle class and we are overtaxed. Middle-class people are not going to stand for higher taxes.”

But it is not just the affluent who oppose the kinds of sacrifices that Bush and Congress have requested. The proposed cuts in Medicare benefits opened the floodgates of protest from senior citizens.

“I think it is a good idea to eliminate the deficit,” noted Lillian Brennock, a 71-year-old resident of a Baltimore senior citizens’ home. “It is a shame that they have so much debt. “But it would be terrible to cut Medicare,” she added. “I know the doctor’s rates keep going up and up. But we need it.”