Washington, D.C., can help reduce voters’ anger

Democratic and Republican party elites have found common ground: panic over what happened Tuesday in New Hampshire. For an antidote to their anxiety, they might consider changing the way they do business in Washington, D.C.

Voters in both major parties are demanding something, anything different from the dreary gridlock and acrimony that they've known for much of the past decade. Yet Washington appears impervious to the tremors rattling the presidential campaign.

President Barack Obama presented his $4.1 trillion budget to Congress on Tuesday, where it was met with the usual verdict: dead on arrival.

The budget, which fleshes out Democratic priorities, is largely a symbolic exercise, since the White House and Congress struck a two-year spending deal last fall. Republicans are struggling to produce their own budget, and they seem unlikely to realize the dream of returning to an orderly appropriations process.

As usual, Washington's perpetual antagonists appear to have agreed not to cooperate. Curiously enough, comity was a main theme of the speech Obama delivered to the Illinois state legislature on Wednesday. "There are a lot of good proposals out there, and we have to work to find ones that can gain some bipartisan support," he said.

In fact, Obama and congressional leaders have shown the capacity to find common ground when it suits them – as they did last fall when the spending deal came together. And Obama and House Speaker Paul Ryan, taken at their word, actually have more than a few issues on which they appear to have areas of agreement: criminal justice reform, drug addiction treatment, poverty, trade, vocational training, visas for highly skilled workers, even tax reform.

This story was originally published February 14, 2016 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Washington, D.C., can help reduce voters’ anger."