Can American Congress Regain Respect?

When I was growing up, I had great interest in and respect for the U.S.

Congress.

My first visit to the Capitol in Washington, when I was a teenager, deepened those sentiments. I was impressed and intrigued by what happened in our national legislature. Subsequent visits and an increasing interest in public policy infl uenced my ambition to work in Congress.

Eventually, I spent more than a dozen years as a Senate staft member, working with some of the most infl uential legislators in Senate history. That experience only heightened my regard for Congress and pride in the way the American governmental system worked.

Yes, Congress faltered at times. Members of Congress were certainly not without their foibles. But most of them were serious about their responsibilities,willing to work to fi nd common ground in dealing with important issues, and devoted to protecting and advancing the interests of the American people.

That was then. This is now.

I will readily acknowledge that among the 535 members of today’s Congress and their stafts there are serious, thoughtful and dedicated individuals. But, unfortunately, there are far too many who want to play politics, to push rigid and unrealistic agendas and are scornful of compromise.

Congress has become a dysfunctional and disgraceful institution.

Yes, Congress didultimately approve a legislative package to avert going over the fi scal clift .

That came only after a group of House members huft ed and pufted and threatened to blow the House down before passage of the bill on New Year’s night.

Legislative bodies have a tendency to defer action until a deadline is nigh, and brinkmanship had already become the characteristic feature of the 112th Congress. The theatrics of recent days carried this tendency to new extremes.

What we witnessed in recent days is the culmination of a trend that has been developing in the past 20 years and became much more pronounced in the last two years. This has been evident not just in the fi scal-clift fiasco, but in an escalating series of battles over the nation’s fi nances.

These included the fi ght over raising the debt ceiling in summer 2011, a politically driven exercise that mainly resulted in downgrading ournation’s credit rating and rattling markets.

So we now have a limited and imperfect fi scal-clift aversion bill, which, however, does bring some clarity to tax policy and cancels impending tax increases for most of us. It will bring in some modest revenue for our debt-plagued government.

Four of six members of the Arkansas congressional delegation supported the bill, with Reps. Rick Crawford and Tim Griff n opposing.

We now have a “new” Congress, although there’s not much expectation the 113th Congress will give the American public reason to look upon it with noticeably more approval than its unlamented predecessor, which had the lowest approval rating in polling history,

Not surprisingly, for all the hubbub and controversy surrounding the recent congressional action, much of what resulted was simply pushing some hard decisions down the road, which hasbecome common practice on Capitol Hill. That is one of the rare points on which compromise appears to be possible.

Thus, it seems likely we will once again face a battle over raising the debt limit.

Then there’s the monstrosity known as sequestration, a phony device that was going to kick in if Congress didn’t act and would have imposed severe cuts in government agencies, including the Pentagon. As part of the fi scal-clift package, Congress postponed the sequestration for two months, meaning an almost certain confrontation ahead.

Needless to say, Congress does need to face up to spending cuts and to deal with the vexing matter of entitlements. As the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Off ce reported, “ With the population aging and health care costs per person likely to keep growing faster than the economy, the United States cannot sustain the federal spendingprograms that are now in place with the federal taxes that it has been accustomed to paying.”

Considering the seriousness of the budgetary and financial issues that we face, we should hope for a more resolute and pragmatic Congress.

However, polarization and paralysis are likely to be continuing characteristics.

Gerrymandering of many congressional districts has resulted in election of many members who represent politically solid constituencies where the only competition is within rather than among political parties.

The nation desperately needs fiscal stability and cries out for members of Congress with the political will to put the nation’s interest ahead of partisan concerns - and in the process restore respect for the legislative branch.

HOYT PURVIS IS A JOURNALISM AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PROFESSOR.