WASHINGTON – Ask Todd County dairy farmer Pat Lunemann what gridlock in Congress means to him and he'll talk about how much he wants a functioning immigration law that would let him hire a steady workforce to care for his cattle.
Or listen to Ron Lowry, who owns a manufacturing company in Blaine. He never knows how much money to spend every year on employees or new equipment, because Congress usually waits until mid-December to decide the fate of certain business tax breaks.
Or Chippewa County highway engineer Steve Kubista, who anxiously just approved a new road project that should be 80 percent funded by the federal government. But if the federal Highway Trust Fund goes broke in four weeks, there is no telling how the tiny county will cover this — and future — costs.
Political paralysis on Capitol Hill has gripped Washington so frequently over the past five years that across Minnesota and the nation it has become an unwelcome and often maddening fact of life. Starting in 2011, the last two congresses were among the least productive in U.S. history, passing just over 400 pieces of legislation in four years. About a fourth of those bills were merely ceremonial, like the naming of post offices.
Even funding the basic expenses of governing has become a recurring struggle. Just two years ago, the federal government shut down for several weeks after Congress failed to pass any spending bills. Often when bills are passed, the funding is for short-term chunks, with votes taken last-minute and late at night.
Even the politicians faulted for creating the gridlock say they are exasperated by it.
"I don't think there is anything optimistic about this," Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., said at a recent weekly breakfast in his Capitol Hill office for Minnesotans. "There is nothing more depressing to me than that."
End uncertainty
Inaction inside the beltway often creates uncertainty beyond it, which can be heard in the voices of mayors, business owners, farmers and county officials of all political stripes.