It’s tough to give Americans what they want
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for avoiding hard choices, refusing to ask constituents for short-term sacrifice in exchange for long-term gains, and for putting off the day of reckoning. But they understand accurately that their constituents often want contradictory things, and may well punish at the polls members who speak frankly and make tough choices.

It is unfair, then, to place all the onus for government’s failings on our politicians. We — all of us — deserve some of the blame. Americans must understand our own responsibility for creating the problem if we want politicians to fix it.

Above all, it’s crucial to understand that it is the job of the political process — and of Congress, in particular — to recognize the confusion inherent in popular desires and to resolve it. Much of what goes on in policymaking on Capitol Hill is the effort to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable views and to develop a consensus when people are asking government to do contradictory things.

This is the tough, time-consuming work of representative democracy, and some understanding, even patience, on the part of the ordinary voter seems entirely appropriate — since we so often contribute to the dilemma in the first place.

Lee Hamilton is director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University. He was a member of the U.S. House for 34 years.