Whatever happened to statesmanship?

“I got a lot of problems with you people!” yells George Costanza’s father on Seinfeld during the Festivus Airing of the Grievances.

And that’s how I felt watching our Congressional Republicans during the fight to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits.

At a time when millions of Americans cannot find work and many families open empty cupboards the latter half of every month, House Republicans were willing to raise taxes on working people and leave the unemployed empty handed.

For what? To protect wealthy Americans and corporate special interests, in this case, a Canadian energy company lobbying to build the Keystone pipeline – an enterprise with no proven long-term benefits and major environmental risks.

It’s like watching a parent with a tantrum-throwing toddler -- on one side is a reasonable willingness to work together while on the other is a determination to obstruct everything that might give the other party and, in most cases 99 percent of voters, help.

That’s about the level of conversation we’ve seen from Congress the last three years, especially since electing a group of Tea Party Republicans in 2010. And it becomes more infuriating the longer this recession lasts.

But most importantly to these Republican representatives, such obstruction prevents a Democratic president from “scoring” what they see as only a political win. I’ve heard some of these public officials say, “It’s a matter of principle.”

I have to question the principles of anyone willing to let the entire country slide off a cliff by shutting down our government and cutting off paychecks – employment, unemployment, Social Security – to the people most in need. Is it principled to deliberately destroy the nation’s financial standing because you disagree with the political philosophy of the democratically elected president and the opposition party?

And is it principled to ignore the voters who elected you to score political victories when these same voters desperately need policies to provide aid and encourage hiring? Is it principled to argue for policies proven, disastrously I might add based on the last 10 years, NOT to work, such as income tax cuts for wealthy Americans and corporations?

At a time when many Americans would take any work they could get, is it principled to sit on your hands instead of doing the work voters elected you to do?

Perhaps these Tea Party Republicans don’t understand they have been elected as statesmen.

Statesmanship requires conversing with the opposition to find common ground. It also requires a willingness to move, explore options and compromise to pass legislation that benefits as many citizens as possible. (And corporations are not citizens!)

It’s a balancing act because a statesman understands his or her constituents include a variety of interests. But instead, our current Congressional Republicans have decided obstructing everything proposed by the opposition is their job.

That’s the level of “public service” voters get when we elect representatives based solely on political advertisements, campaign speeches and party affiliation.

And let’s be honest, isn’t that what a lot of us do?

Until Americans demand information on policy, track legislation and voting records, and do their homework on candidates for office, it’s all we’re going to get.

Because it’s not the party that matters, it’s the person. And everybody has a history.

So make sure you do your homework before you cast your vote. The information is out there if you choose to access it.