Congress hasn't been exactly popular in a long time, and two recent polls drove that point home again. In an Associated Press-GfK poll, only 12 percent of those surveyed said Congress is doing a good job, compared with 87 percent who think Congress is on the wrong track. A Gallup poll put the disapproval at 84 percent, compared with 13 percent approval.
There can be many reasons for the unpopularity of lawmakers. Sometimes they must take difficult but necessary votes for the good of the country.
But all too often, they bring disfavor on themselves with unwise legislation. Think of the billions of dollars wasted, for instance, on harmful ethanol subsidies or unconstitutional federal support for Amtrak -- to say nothing of much bigger and extremely unpopular budget items such as ObamaCare.
And now, with a bipartisan "super committee" of Congress tasked with proposing, before Thanksgiving, more than $1 trillion in long-term deficit cuts, Democrats on the committee are zeroing in on tax increases rather than keeping the focus on the excessive spending that caused our huge deficits in the first place.
That's no recipe for enhancing the public's opinion of Congress.
Even when they do the right things, our representatives and senators in Washington will never please everyone. But it would be a refreshing change if they at least did fewer of the obviously wrong things.