Who could possibly be proud of our legislators?

Perhaps there never was a time when politics was better than today. Maybe it was always screwy. Maybe we think the political process is worse today because we hear and see it functioning the instant something happens. Or doesn't happen.

Our legislators on both the state and federal levels are such a disgrace that you have to wonder how they can look each other in the eye. You have to wonder if their mothers would be proud.

The U.S. Senate has long been regarded as the world's most deliberative body. That was both a form of praise and a form of criticism. The Senate carefully considered the whims of the rowdy House of Representatives and wisely approved only the best public policy, sometimes taking months to accomplish what could have been done in a day or two.

So we thought.

Now we know that the U.S. Senate has become an asylum for deaf-mutes. Senators obviously aren't listening or choose not to hear what Americans have to say. And senators aren't saying much these days. The silence is particularly thunderous concerning the nation's fiscal policy. Which, by the way, scarcely seems to exist, unless you're willing to cede to the unelected central bankers of the Federal Reserve all things monetary.

So here we are. Presumably the world as we know it has ended, because no one blinked in this national game of what I call Blind Man's Bluff. And the worst is yet to come. Our elected big shots still have to decide about government spending for the rest of the fiscal year -- or shut down government.

Shut down government? Shoot, that happened months ago when Republicans and Democrats drew lines across the filthy floors of both chambers of Congress and dared anyone to step across in any attempt to compromise.

Filthy floors? Well, the crap has to go somewhere.

Meanwhile, Jefferson City is where we can all look for laughs when we get down in the dumps.

Our state capitol is where the majority Republicans are playing games to amuse us. This is how it works:

If the feds try to impose something you don't like, make it a state felony to cooperate.

That's right. If the feds pass stiffer gun laws, make it a crime in the Show Me State to enforce the new rules. If the feds want to give Missouri billions of dollars for health care for the needy, make it a crime to participate in this supposedly evil scheme.

These proposals are stupid.

The sponsors know it. The supporters know it. The voters know it.

So this is what it all comes down to:

We have a Congress bogged down in its own sewage. Representatives and senators are up to their chins in you know what, which means they can't open their mouths for fear of drowning in their own wasteful gyrations.

And we have a state legislature doing improv comedy for the amusement of taxpayers who, if they do the math, already know how many billions of dollars the state could save in one simple stroke: Change the state constitution to allow the General Assembly to meet -- once a decade.

Do-nothing or do-stupid. We've got it all covered in our marbled halls of legislative folly.

Aren't we lucky?

By the way, just so you don't forget. We voters approved all of this at the ballot box. Yes, we are so lucky.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.