Here’s your homework for today: Go to the Government Printing Office’s website and order the current edition of the Congressional Pictorial Directory, which contains color photographs of every member of the 112th Congress. Save it, and after the 2016 elections, look back through the guide and see how many of this year’s members are still in the House and Senate. My guess is that the number will be shockingly low. Many members will lose in primaries or general elections in 2012, 2014, and 2016; some will retire; and some will seek another office. But I’ll bet that the attrition rate will be remarkably high.
Story: Obama: Any debt solution must be bipartisan

Over the course of history, Congress and the White House have seen highs and lows. Times that can be remembered with pride and other times when politicians failed to meet the American people’s expectations. Right now, we are at a very, very low point—the worst I’ve seen since I moved to Washington in September 1972. Never in my memory have both parties and both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue appeared as dysfunctional as they do today. The stakes are so high and the performance is so utterly disappointing. The goals of most of the debt-ceiling proposals being debated are so modest that victory would really be a defeat in terms of what needs to be done.