WASHINGTON - Sixty-four years after President Harry S. Truman took to the rails to rail against the "Do-Nothing Congress," America finds itself burdened with a bickering bunch of federal lawmakers who, so far, have accomplished about one-seventh as much as the Congress that Truman so hated.
That's just one nail in the coffin of the reputation of the 112th Congress, which, if you believe the experts, may be making its mark as the most inept ever.
"We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional," wrote Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, authors of a new book called "It's Even Worse Than It Looks," in a recent essay in the Washington Post.
And it's not just the political scholars who are saying that. Ask Western New York's lawmakers to describe the current Congress, and you'll hear adjectives like "broken," "irrational" and "worst."
Many lawmakers, rhetorically, seem to throw up their hands in frustration - although Reps. Kathleen C. Hochul and Tom Reed and Sen. Charles E. Schumer see glimmers of hope.
For now, though, many in Washington would agree with the assessment of Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport : "I think it's pretty well established that this is the worst term of Congress since the beginning of time," said Slaughter, a 26-year veteran of the House of Representatives.
Record-keeping of the tally began in 1947. As the 112th Congress begins a five-week recess, proof of its epic awfulness can be found, first, in the numbers.
The Do-Nothing Congress that Truman made famous passed 906 laws. No Congress in the past 64 years has passed fewer than 280. But the current Congress, with most of its two years in office already over, has passed only 127.
What hasn't gotten done?
* A budget.
* Spending bills to fund the government for the next fiscal year - though a deal is in the works to pay the government's bills for six months, at least.
* Relief for farmers stricken by the worst drought in more than half a century.
* A once-routine farm bill giving farmers certainty over federal programs.
* And a solution to a fiscal time bomb that's set to explode on Jan. 1, 2013 - created by the very Congress now struggling to defuse it.
Jan. 1 is the day the Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire - slicing $2,200 out of the average family's income, noted Hochul, D-Hamburg. It's also the day a draconian 10-year, $984 billion budget cut opposed by both parties is set to take effect.
Congress drew up that budget cut as part of last summer's deal to extend the debt ceiling, hoping that the blunt-force impact of the threatened budget cuts would inspire it later to draw up something wiser.
But what has Congress done about all of that so far? The two houses have passed competing tax bills and refused to compromise, while letting the budget cuts that everybody hates linger.
So if Congress isn't seriously addressing such vital issues, what is it doing?
Well, the Republican-led House has voted to repeal the Obama health-reform law - 33 times.
Asked what the point of that could possibly be, Reed, R-
Corning, said: "We were trying to improve the law that I disagree with that's a complete government takeover of health care. We were trying to do the work and send a firm message to the American public."
And meanwhile, what has the Senate been up to?
Well, not much.
The Democrat-led Senate has not passed a budget since 2009. And most legislation that the House has passed and other major measures have died in the upper body.
"It is pretty obvious that the reason the Senate is so inactive is because the majority leader doesn't want to take up any serious bills that are important to the future of the country," Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, said on the Senate floor last month.
Of course, there's a reason why Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., holds his fire. The quirky custom called the filibuster requires that 60 out of 100 senators must support major bills before they can pass, and Reid can rarely muster the seven GOP votes to get anything big done.
"We've now gotten to the point where there aren't any moderates left," said Keith Poole, a political scientist at the University of Georgia. "So there's nobody to make deals."
Poole's research shows the current Congress to be the most polarized since 1879. And he thinks that those deep partisan divisions mean it will be close to impossible to deal with upcoming fiscal problems.
Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., worries about the economic impact of continuing stalemate.
"The fact is we won't be able to get our economy growing until we restore faith and confidence in the system," she said in Buffalo earlier this year.
So who's to blame? It depends on whom you talk to.
Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, largely blames Republican lawmakers who have veered far right and refuse to meet Democrats in the middle.
"They're playing politics and not addressing the fundamental problems that plague this economy," Higgins said.
Chris Collins, the former Erie County executive who is now the Republican candidate against Hochul, blames President Obama for Congress' failures.
Early in his term, Obama pushed legislation through Congress without reaching out to Republicans, Collins claims. And besides, "He has been in office for four years and he's blamed George W. Bush [his GOP predecessor] for everything," he added.
Meanwhile, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, blames us all.
"Members tend to reflect their constitiuencies," Boehner said last week. "I've been around here quite a while, I've watched this quite a bit, and the American people are probably more polarized now than any time since I've seen. And as a result, you see that polarization reflected here in the halls of Congress."
Among the public, the polarization has bred disgust.
In June, Gallup pegged the approval rating of Congress at 17 percent - up from a paltry 9 percent last fall, but at about the same level as BP after its 2010 Gulf oil spill and Paris Hilton in 2005, when TV Guide dubbed her "talentless."
Amid all that loathing, some members of Congress detect the beginnings of a change in tone.
Hochul said the hell that tax increases could wreak on the economy should inspire the parties to work together.
"As a Democrat in a very Republican district, I've got the ability to see through the partisanship of both sides," she said. "Both sides are guilty, and this has got to stop. The stakes are too high."
Reed said some members of the Republican freshman class in the House are beginning to build relationships with Democrats.
And Schumer, D-N.Y., noted the recent passage of a transportation bill and student loan legislation as positive signs.
Perhaps, then, lawmakers are starting to act out of shame on the message that Ezra Klein, a Washington Post columnist, sent in a recent column called "14 Reasons Why This Is the Worst Congress Ever."
"The 112th Congress has been an embarrassment - and its members know it," Klein wrote.
