After many decades of progress and prosperity, it seems that we are, as a country, taking a long-delayed hit in the face. The past few years have been astoundingly difficult, rivaling most (if not all) of our past historical struggles.

In the past year alone, we witnessed the addition or escalation of even more problems with health care (46.3 million now live without health insurance), unemployment (which at 10.1 percent is now at a 26-year high), the auto industry (the U.S. and Canada now own 60 and 12 percent of GM, respectively) and numerous other issues.

What’s even more surprising (and a little scary, to be honest) is how our government is reacting to this.

Ever since the new administration has stepped into office, the Democratic Party has been so hopelessly divided that any meaningful attempts at proper and necessary legislation utterly fails. That, coupled with the Republican Party opting to simply be the party saying “no” to everything lately, has made any advancement impossible.

Let me be clear, however. I am really not blaming the Republicans for these problems, or the Democrats for that matter. I actually don’t think it’s their fault that they utterly fail time after time. I am really just blaming us, the citizens, for allowing such a failing system to still go on, unchecked and uncontested.

There’s one case of reform that we so badly need at the moment, but that seems to have been overlooked within the messy battles of health care and financial reform. Right now, and more than ever, what we truly need is true, long-due congressional reform. It’s imperative that we reform our politics if we are to have any chance of having true reform elsewhere.

The American political system is littered with mundane age-old rules that are just ineffective today. It truly seems that the American people, 70 percent of whom disapprove of the job their own Congress is doing, believe that something is wrong. But where do you start reforming?

Filibustering seems to be a good start. Today, one or two senators can simply use this threatening tactic to stall the Senate from taking a simple vote. This is the same system that was used in the 1970s to avoid passing civil rights reform. The ineffective legislation the system allowed recently caused a senator, Evan Bayh, to quit the Senate in protest.

However, we clearly can’t address all the issues, at least not instantly. To be honest, I’m having trouble just listing all the problems with Congress. I feel like the incredible feat of finding all the faults with Congress couldn’t possibly fit in a 500-word column. It would most likely require a book and months upon months of research to even scratch the surface. 

Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about Thomas Friedman’s view that the American citizen is like an ICU patient who, just after waking up, witnessed all the doctors and staff around him (the government) fighting with one another and making a complete mess. That metaphor hasn’t changed. We’re still that patient and if we don’t significantly overhaul and reform our Congress, I’m afraid we’re going to have serious long-term health problems.