Congress is taking up a one trillion dollar spending bill that would keep the federal government in business through the end of the fiscal year. But that news is unlikely to signal a watershed new era in bipartisan cooperation in the capital.
And that won’t come as a surprise to most in this country. Numbers from several polling firms put Americans’ approval of their own members of Congress at a record low.
A Wisconsin writer says we need not be so pessimistic about our attitudes towards elected officials. Mike McCabe offers a blue print for change in his new book, Blue Jeans in High Places: The Coming Makeover of American Politics. He is also the director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
"We’ve seen these conditions before. We’ve seen times where the public grew very disenchanted with the major parties," McCabe says. "Past generations took some very creative and imaginative steps to force change within the two-party system. And I think the time is ripe for doing that again."
