The House of Representatives passed the Mark Twain Commemorative Coin Act in April. We can only imagine the scathing mockery from the satirist at having his likeness struck onto gold and silver $5 and $1 coins. Beyond his bemusement at the meaningless tribute, Twain likely would have scorned its enactment coming immediately after the Senate's refusal to consider the "Buffett rule." The father of the Gilded Age would have been disgusted at a Congress so broken by partisanship as to be unable to even debate our problems stemming from uncured financial greed.

Twain, who once suggested having coins read "within certain judicious limitations we trust in God" and called the lack of money "the root of all evil," would have been tickled to see his face engraved on currency because of his own money problems. In 1894, after a series of bad business decisions, Twain went broke before going on a worldwide tour that would replenish his assets and cement his status as America's greatest humorist. One can picture his puckish delight at being immortalized alongside George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln as perhaps the only man on our currency who once declared bankruptcy.

But any joy Twain would have felt at this irony would probably be tempered with derision. While members of Congress liberally sprinkle their speeches with Twain's witticisms, it is lost on them that Twain loathed politicians; he once postulated that Congress was the only "distinctly native American criminal class," populated exclusively by idiots. In his autobiography released on the 100th anniversary of his death, he savaged the "tyranny of party -- at what is called party allegiance, party loyalty."

While Twain was writing on the corruption and graft of Tammany Hall and its machine progeny that thrived after the Civil War, his words are no less applicable today. Since Republicans retook the House and gained near parity in the Senate in 2010, Congress has passed a historically low slate of legislation, on track for no major initiatives this election year. This inactivity has been present for years, but it has reached a pitiful nadir, as Congress stands unable to even discuss, much less alleviate, the nation's systematic economic problems.

The rigid enforcement of party loyalty, especially on the Republican side, stings far more than the reeds Aunt Polly and the Widow Douglas ever used on free-spirited Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. This corrosive partisanship was on display days before the House passed the coin bill, as unified Senate Republicans blocked debate over the Buffett rule, a modest proposal which would have established a 30 percent tax rate floor for the nation's highest earners to help close the enormous existing wealth gap.

Twain used many of his books and articles to lampoon authority figures and government, but his most enduring contribution to political criticism was the 1873 novel, "The Gilded Age," a satire of Washington, D.C. The book's title would come to name the era between 1865 and the early 20th century when greed, materialism and national wealth inequity exploded.

As the gap between the super rich and everyone else has expanded over the last generation -- with the top 1 percent's share of pre-tax income slightly higher today than it was nearly a century ago -- many economists have called this a second Gilded Age. From his co-authorship of "The Gilded Age," Twain would seem sympathetic to the Buffett rule and measures designed to combat inequity.

But Twain's views of wealth were nuanced. Twain championed the working class, but was critical of federal involvement into private enterprise. In "The Prince and the Pauper," he disparaged castes and inherited capital, but he also supported property rights and capitalism generally. One of his closest friends, Henry H. Rogers, was a leader at Standard Oil and helped manage the author's finances after his ruin. So it's hard to imagine that Twain would cheer many of the radical elements of the 99 percent protest movement.

The differences between Twain's time and today are nonetheless deeply revealing. Despite the abusive behavior of the "robber barons," the Carnegies, Hills and Rockefellers helped pave the way for America's industrial rise and many were themselves deeply philanthropic. It was an era with dueling greed and technological advancement that Twain both disdained and praised. By contrast, many of our modern financial titans build fortunes for their own sake and not some higher purpose of national growth. Given his contempt for materialism, Twain probably wouldn't be overly impressed with today's 1 percent.

Regardless of how one imputes Twain's views to our age, his ridicule for our contemporary political institutions would be a given, as Congress seems incapable of addressing our economic problems or remedying the poisonous decision by the Supreme Court to give monied special interests virtually unfettered power to influence elections -- an opinion Twain would have abhorred. Instead, Congress busies itself with resolutions congratulating sports teams and minting commemorative gold and silver pieces.

Were he wielding his acid pen in 2012, Twain's response to the legislation in his honor might therefore resemble the complaints of Huck Finn's alcoholic Pap, who angrily exclaimed: "Call this a govment! Why, just look at it and see what it's like!"

Greenbaum is a writer and attorney in Washington, D.C.