You said  "How can we tell the government that their indecision is putting our livelihood at stake?" Your government like ours in the UK are not interested in what the voters want !! They are only interested in looking after themselves !!

The update to this is that the Government had to raise the debt ceiling, and did so.   While many will argue that it should not have been raised, including some politicians, this is not true.   Had the debt ceiling not been raised, it would have reverberated throughout the economy in an immense and incredibly negative fashion.   The reason this issue is stilll relevant is because the Supercommittee that was supposed to solve this problem in "Round 2", did not help to solve the problem, and in fact some members began saying that some spending programs should not be cut, even though they have been saying nonstop for months that major spending cuts needed  to be made.  The math proves that if taxes are not raised to close the deficit, then titanic spending cuts, up to 40% or more, in all sectors, have to be made - and made immedicately.   If this had actually taken place, a very safe bet is that all citizens that receive money from the Government one way or another, who get a 40% cut in their income, would have made their voices known, in a major way, immediately.  The issue continues to be relevant to Small Businesses, because Small Businesses will suffer from interest rate increases if this problem is not solved.   Rates will increase because lenders will feel lending to the U.S. is becoming riskier and will require hire rates. If the Bond rating agencies, such as Moody's and Standard and Poors have another downgrade, this may begin a permanent rate increase path.    In addition, such interest rate increase will continue and be very harmful to many sectors in the economy. 

All business depend from their customers. Small business usually deal with common person. So level of his income and willing to spend money is more important. You can not change situation with debt. It is the big bosses game.

The only thing to do is no to take extra risks and minimize exposure to the markets... My opinion is that eventually it will be solved because both republican and democrats don't want to see another crisis.