Maya MacGuineas and Mike Murphy

Opinion contrbutors

While citizens await further information on the Mueller report, with their hopes and pre-conceptions deeply aligned with their political views, another milestone report recently landed in Washington with barely a whisper. The Treasury Department reported the United States government posted a $234 billion budget deficit in the month of February — the largest monthly gap in the history of the nation.

At the same time, another report, issued by the Pew Research Center, highlighted widespread pessimism about our nation’s future. Sixty five percent of respondents believe that over the next 30 years the country will become more polarized; 60% believe the U.S. will be less important on the world stage; and 73% believe the gap between the rich and poor will grow even worse. Most telling perhaps, 88% are worried about our political leaders’ ability to solve any of these challenges.

The lack of attention these disturbing reports received is telling as to where the country is as we wade into to another presidential cycle. Our nation’s challenges continue to pile-up while toxic partisanship reigns supreme. And too many of our leaders continue to ratchet up the fight. And we wonder why trust in government and our institutions are at all-time lows.

Read more commentary:

The government is now a check-writing, wealth-redistribution machine that costs trillions

Trump's 2020 budget delivers gimmicks, soaring debt and broken promises

Trump budget: Deficits don't matter anymore, until the day when, suddenly, they do

In many ways our budget deficits and ever-rising debt are a symptom and symbol of the deterioration of our politics, with debt service payments soon to be a greater share of the federal budget than programs that support children. As a nation, we have become incapable of making tough choices or achieving bipartisan compromise. We are focused on the short term at the expense of the long term. And we reward hyper-partisanship over making progress on behalf of the American people.

In this sorry state, it’s easy to forget that earlier this decade leaders in Washington came close to reaching a landmark bipartisan “grand bargain” to fix our national debt. While that effort ultimately failed, few would have guessed at the time that the effort to fix the debt would be the last serious attempt to deliver a lasting bipartisan solution to a long list of critical national issues, from healthcare, to immigration, to climate and taxation.

We can't keep doing whats not working

If we continue on our current path, the potential consequences are beyond troubling. Our politically-charged governance system will continue to neglect pressing national challenges and opportunities from the debt to preparing our children for an-ever more competitive environment. And significant legislation will continue to be passed on a partisan basis, contributing to an environment of policy and economic uncertainty — as was the case with both the recent tax cuts and prior to that the Affordable Care Act.

Toxic partisanship isn’t just an “inside Washington” issue of course. Numerous studies cite a growing political divide nationwide and an alarming antipathy for the opposing side. For example, a recent paper by political scientists Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe found over 40% of people in both parties consider those in the opposing party to be “downright evil,” with about one in five from both parties feeling political opponents “lack the traits to be considered fully human — they behave like animals.”

While there’s no denying America’s divisions, there’s ample evidence that Americans are uneasy about this state of affairs we’ve created for ourselves. For example, a recent Gallup poll found a record high percentage of Americans citing the government itself at the nation’s top problem, higher than immigration, health care, or a host of other problems. Some Americans are taking notice, and taking action. Across the country, a countervailing force is rising in the form of a growing number of activist groups committed to fixing our broken system and healing our divided nation.

We need to work together for the future

Some of these groups are dedicated to identifying and supporting candidates for office who are focused on working across party lines. Other are focusing on encouraging civil discourse between reasonable Americans on both sides of the political fence — and learning to disagree more agreeably. Others are taking on ingrained systemic issues such as money in politics, an entrenched system of gerrymandering, or Senate and House rules that give too much power to party leaders and discourage compromise. With the next election approaching, these groups have the potential to develop a serious platform of ideas to advance change, and to coalesce into a movement too powerful to ignore.

What all have in common is a desire to wrest control of America’s future from warring political tribes, politicians whose vision extends only as far as the next election, and the infiltration of crass partisanship into once-trusted civic and cultural institutions. Each in its own way understands that the forces driving us ever farther apart have put the American experiment at risk, opened us to foreign influence and eroded trust in our leaders and in democracy itself.

No single challenge Americans face poses an existential threat to our nation on the order of our accelerating slide into political chaos. Political disunion is the defining issue of our time, and addressing it needs to be at the top of our political agenda for the 2020 election cycle and beyond. Unless we overcome this most fundamental challenge, we have little hope of surmounting the others.

Maya MacGuineas is the president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and Mike Murphy is the director of the Committee’s new reform initiative, FixUS. Follow them on Twitter: @MayaMacGuineas and @MVMurph