It is painful to see Congress helpless and demoralized, turned into a punching bag for late-night comedians.
It is sad that, in the wake of the House bank scandal, a record number of members, including some of the best, are abandoning their careers because they feel Congress no longer can act on the problems they were elected to solve.They are right. Congress is muscle-bound - too big and busy to act on tough issues.
The typical rat-race day of a member of Congress - committee meetings, visits from constituents, speeches, votes, receptions, fund-raising, travel - is mostly a waste of time.
Last year more than 4,000 bills were introduced in the House. Only 160 became law, most of them trivial.
To produce this puny product the House spent $1.6 billion and employed staffs totaling 25,000.
The very size of the system contributes to its breakdown. The more staffers, the more bills introduced, hearings held and amendments prepared.
The more bills, the more lobbyists hired to influence their content. The more lobbyists, the more money exchanged, through campaign contributions.
The more access purchased, the more demands made on congressmen's time. The more demands, the more staff hired. And the cycle begins again.
Almost all the special privileges that have deeply offended the public were put in place to give members of Congress more time for this self-defeating circuit.
House members created their own bank so they would not have to go downtown and stand in line to cash a check.
They established a health clinic so they would not have to sit in a waiting room to see a doctor.
Congress runs one of America's largest catering services so that its members will not have to go to a hotel for a lunch speech or reception: Interest groups (which pay for the catering) now hold these events in the Capitol.
Some of these perks have been withdrawn because they could not stand public scrutiny.
But Congress must go much further, ending the duplication of subcommittees that slow things up with turf struggles, reforming the campaign financing laws and putting a limit on the length and complexity of legislation passed to accommodate every interest group.
Congress prides itself on being the "people's branch" of government. Its members need to experience what ordinary folks go through daily.
If its members slowed down and concentrated on what is really important to their country and constituencies, they would have time to sit for an hour while waiting to see a doctor; they might use that time to think through a solution to the health-care crisis.
(Milton Gwirtzman, a lawyer, often writes about Congress.)