Medicare is facing a fiscal calamity: how can the growth of Medicare spending be limited while ensuring that beneficiaries continue to have access to affordable health care?

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi should step in before this Waters embarrassment gets worse and hits a House that is already at a nadir in terms of public approval.

Dozens of ethics controversies involving members of the House and Senate have resulted in surprisingly few investigations over the past decade--and little substantive corrective action by the chambers’ ethics oversight committees. However, recent firestorms over alleged congressional misconduct have focused considerable media attention on these issues.

A nonpartisan,...

As Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain is fond of saying, Congress, with an approval rating of 9 percent to 13 percent, is down to “blood relatives and paid staff.” It is no wonder that President Barack Obama is running against the “do-nothing” 112th Congress and that the pitch is resonating with lots of voters.

A resolution to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics would strip it of much of the limited power it now has and silence its ability to release most of the information it gathers, greatly damaging disclosure and the integrity of our political process.

By wide margins, Americans want our elected officials to work together. But Democrats and independents want compromise while Republicans want their politicians to stick to principle.

In conjunction with the Reform Institute, Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution have co-written a report entitled “Restoring Order: Practical Solutions to Congressional Dysfunction.” In the report, the authors offer concrete suggestions that the leaders of the next Congress should...