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Congress is broken. Both parties are responsible. And that has mostly destroyed American taxpayers' trust in government.

The House of Representatives averages only 138 "legislative days" a year — less than one in three days each week. They usually begin on Tuesday and adjourn Thursday, spending less than a third of their time actually doing congressional work, and instead dedicating as much as half their time “dialing for dollars" for their next campaign.

It is a money-dominated system that produces a Congress that fails to plan long-range and focuses more on the next election than the next generation. After all, as Donald Trump reminded us, when you ask people like the Koch Brothers for thousands of dollars, they give it not because they believe you’ll be a great congressman for South Dakota, but to be a great congressman for them.

Having to raise extraordinary amounts of money to run for Congress closes off public service for most Americans, leaving us with a Congress that has 15 percent approval ratings but re-election rates of over 90 percent.

We won’t make progress on our big issues like affordable healthcare, controlling the budget and solving immigration until we break the hold of special interests and Wall Street on our Congress.