In Congress, 2014 Begins with Shrunken Ambitions

Well, it's not like Harry Reid was gonna reach across the aisle or anything. See his interview on "Meet the Press,"Reid: Republicans should extend unemployment insurance." And the Republican response, "House GOP looks to foil Dems' 2014 agenda."

At WaPo:

Back in 2009, during the heady days of hope and change, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) introduced 90 pieces of legislation. In 2013, amid gridlock and dysfunction, he sponsored just 35 bills. None of them became law.

It was a familiar pattern. Members of Congress from both parties introduced fewer bills last year than in similar legislative years over the past decade. They cast fewer votes than usual. And, as has been noted, they passed fewer laws than in any other year in recorded congressional history.

Set to begin a new session Monday, lawmakers are struggling to find optimism that 2014 will mark a pivot point for an institution whose historically low approval rating has been at or below 20 percent for three years. Last year seemed to bring a rock-bottom moment — not just in the public’s view but across the Capitol, where ambition withered among lawmakers themselves.

“Legislators give up on the process, and either before or right after they’ve done that, the people that we work for give up on the process,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a 17-year veteran of the House and the Senate. He summed up the malaise that some members of Congress feel: “Whenever anybody tells me, ‘I’m frustrated with the way the Senate and the Congress are working,’ I say, ‘I fully understand; I’m more frustrated with this than you are.’ ”

The year ended with a bright moment when bipartisan groups in the House and the Senate agreed to a budget framework for 2014 and 2015.

Rather than a reprieve, however, that modest bill presented a challenge: Can lawmakers continue to forge compromises between the GOP-controlled House and the Democrat-dominated Senate, or was the budget deal a brief flicker of comity?

“We could show the American people how you do legislation in a divided Congress, and it takes a lot of work, and you have to listen to each other, and you have to be respectful of each other, which I think, in general, has been lacking,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who co-sponsored the budget deal with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

Look, you go to legislate with the legislative institutions that you have. Republicans need to hold firm against the left's big government agenda while positioning themselves for electoral gains in November.

More at the link.