If Washington can’t focus on policy now, when can it?

Many Washington politicos have spent the last two weeks putting politics above solving the nation’s financial crisis. In doing so, they have provided the quintessential example of why Americans are so fed up with Washington.

Many House members who voted against the bailout on Monday — Democrats and Republicans — are in close election contests and appear to have opposed the bill largely because they fear losing their seats if they vote for something the majority of Americans oppose.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi couldn’t let pass the opportunity to bash Republicans before the vote. Some Republicans apparently decided to act like middle-school students and voted against the bill not because they opposed it, but because their feelings were hurt by Pelosi’s inappropriate and overly partisan speech.

John McCain decided to pull a political stunt and try to use the crumbling economy to bolster his presidential campaign. And the Senate had to add a bunch of unrelated sweeteners — and hundreds of pages — to the bill before passing it, an apparent attempt to bribe members of Congress to support the bill.

To top it all off, they’re trying to change the moniker attached to the bill from “bailout” to something that has a more positive connotation, like “economic stabilization” or “economic rescue.”

This is why the average approval rating of Congress in recent polls is 17.8 percent. President Bush’s isn’t much better at 26.7 percent. Even now, when our economy is on the verge of collapse, Washington can’t set aside partisan politics as it struggles to find a solution.

If Washington can’t set aside partisan politics at this critical moment in history, I find it difficult to believe our political leaders are even capable any longer of doing what our founding fathers intended: debating policy on its merits until they find a workable and realistic compromise.

And if Washington can no longer set aside partisanship for the good of the nation, what hope is there for the nation? Our Constitution sets up a government that can change over time to adapt to the needs of society. Our leaders have to be able to come together to solve major problems. In addition to the economy, there’s the war, energy, health care, immigration and infrastructure, just to name a few of the critical issues Washington has failed to address that are already emergencies or are huge problems that each threaten to become a crisis at any time.

Democrats often blame the Bush presidency for the fact that America is living from crisis to crisis, but the bipartisan Congress is just as culpable. By failing to solve problems, Washington is letting important issues degrade into emergencies. Now our nation is teetering on the brink, and many in Washington are trying to figure out how to profit politically from the situation. Disgusting.

Time to throw the bums out

And one more thing: It is a bailout, regardless of what anyone says. It’s a bailout of banks that deceived people into taking on debt they couldn’t afford and, in doing so, took on toxic debt themselves. It’s also a bailout of homeowners who didn’t educate themselves enough to figure out that they couldn’t afford mortgages they’re now struggling to pay. And it’s a bailout of the government that’s dependent on those banks and homeowners, a government that failed to regulate the system and ensure that banks couldn’t trick people into taking on debt they couldn’t afford.

This is a democracy. We’re all in this together. We dug ourselves a deep, deep hole. We’re looking to our leaders to lead us out of this mess, and many of them are busy instead trying to figure out how to profit from it. I don’t have the answer to the financial crisis. I have incredibly mixed feelings about the bill working its way through Congress. I’ve heard other ideas that might be good, but Congress is apparently unwilling to consider them. Even if lawmakers approve the bailout, it should not be seen as the end, as though they’ve fixed the problem. It should be the beginning of a lot of scrutiny.

But I don’t trust that Washington is capable of the scrutiny that is required, just as I don’t trust that Washington is working with all its might to find a real solution to our crisis, and putting that above all else in our time of need. If those who currently hold office in Washington can’t set aside partisan politics to work for the good of the people now, they won’t ever be able to do it. Since there are no incumbents in New Mexico’s federal races, I can say this without endorsing anyone: It’s time to throw the bums out.