Breakdown

"In his thirty-year career representing the citizens of New Mexico in the United States Senate, Jeff Bingaman witnessed great things accomplished through the legislative process. He saw bold moves to protect the economy during the Great Recession, the expansion of health care through the Affordable Care Act, and the protection of public lands. He also had a front-row seat for the breakdown of governing norms and the radical increases in polarization and partisanship that now plague what was once called the world's greatest deliverative body. Breakdown: Lessons for a Congress in Crisis traces the development of congressional dysfunction over more than three decades and provides eight case studies that examine how the crisis affects our government's ability to meet major policy challenges. We didn't always have a Senate that failed in its basic public obligations, including catalyzing a robust economy, confronting climate change, improving health care, fixing education, preserving public lands, and avoiding unnecessary wars. We do now. Combining insightful analysis of the causes and consequences of the dysfunction in Congress with thirty years of conversations, stories, standoffs, handshakes, and shakedowns from the Senate floor, Breakdown shows how Congress fails at the tasks Americans expect it to perform and, more importantly, how it might begin again to succeed" --