The future of Social Security, food stamps, student and small business loans and other government programs had folks in Rockville’s King Farm neighborhood anxious as lawmakers wrangled over details of the debt ceiling debate last week, according to The Washington Post’s lead story on Sunday.

The article, which ran above the fold on page A-1 of the print edition, gave a man-on-the-street account of what was on the minds of Rockville residents last week as Congressional bickering drove the country ever closer to the edge of default.

Reporters also talked to retired government workers residing in the Ingleside retirement community who said that the Washington of today is not the one they new during their careers in civil service.

“Something’s changed,” Murray Feshbach, an 81-year-old former Census Bureau expert on Russia who is a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told the Post. “I used to be a cautious optimist, but now I’m a confused pessimist.”

In a blog post on Friday, Post reporter Michael S. Rosenwald gave context to the story and provided some additional voices that did not appear in the print edition.