By Jonathan Weisman

Members of Congress will return to Washington next week to face deep challenges including a budget morass in the House and an immigration quagmire in the Senate, while new polls indicate that voters increasingly view the legislative branch as dysfunctional.

How well Republican leaders navigate their way through the legislative mess could greatly influence the outcome of the midterm elections in November, suggests a poll released yesterday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

“The American public is angry with Congress, and this is bad news for the Republican Party,” the authors of the poll concluded.

-Snip-

The House left town on April 7, having failed to pass a budget blueprint for the coming fiscal year. Republican moderates said the House budget plan would spend too little, especially on health, education and workforce programs. House conservatives said the plan spent too much, and members of the Appropriations Committee objected to new budget rules that they said would tie their hands and diminish their authority.

The Senate headed for its spring break under circumstances that were no less acrimonious. Republicans charged Democrats with obstructionism on a major immigration bill, and conservatives accused Republican leaders of capitulation on the immigration issue.

Link

It would be for the benefit of the United States for Congress to take care of the people’s business as soon as politicans come back from a long Easter recess. Leaving important legislation like immigration policy and the next federal budget left undone only hinder the people’s business and allows the body politic to be filled with anger.

Congress, and Republicans in general, have not upheld their duty to the Constitution in a responsible manner. Those in Congress must understand it is their duty to not let politics get in the way of sound reforms and fiscal responsibility this country sincerely needs.

Republicans must come to grips with the reality of their actions - by failing to cut spending and earmarks, Republicans only deepen any potential economic crisis in the United States. While many politicians want to “bring home the pork” so to speak, they must understand they’ve been elected to represent their state in matters which are of national importance, and not just important to the state they respresent. Republicans must steer Congress in a new direction - a direction of fiscal conservativism, limited goverment, low taxes, and less regulation.