The Low, Low Standards for Cooperation in Congress Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, laughed earlier this week at Republican claims that the Senate was being productive simply because it passed a farm bill and an immigration overhaul. "That's great," he said. But we used to do things every week. Not a couple times during the legislative session. Even the smallest legislative agreement is now hailed as a major achievement in a Congress incapable of doing fundamental work. Passage of a farm bill would have been too routine for a headline in previous years, but now the House and Senate can't even agree on whether the bill should pay for food stamps. Only in comparison to the do-nothing House does the Senate look somewhat efficient. Similarly, consider the agenda of the "Problem Solvers," a group of 81 lawmakers from both parties and both chambers who are congratulating themselves for actually making common cause on a few issues. As Jonathan Weisman of The Times reported this morning, their agenda is modest at best: Supporting two-year budgets instead of annual ones. Eliminating redundant programs. Merging the health records of the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. Cutting federal travel budgets and getting outside help to reduce federal energy costs. "This is about finding narrow slivers where conservatives and liberals can get together," said one House member in the group, Mick Mulvaney, a conservative Republican from South Carolina. You can't run before you walk. You have to build up trust. That's pretty pathetic. A big coalition to merge two agencies" health records? Remember, this is a Congress that has yet to agree whether the nation's food stamp program should exist. It couldn't come together on a stunningly obvious way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the deranged. It couldn't stop the sequester. The two chambers remain far apart on the most basic appropriations bills to keep the government running past September. One chamber would rather try to repeal health care reform than work on bills that could actually become law, while the other remains hobbled by the permanent threat of a filibuster on all legislation. I understand the arguments about small steps and building trust and all that. But the main reason there isn't trust right now is because a group of extremists came to Washington in 2011 determined to break that trust and stop Congress from functioning properly. One of them was Mr. Mulvaney. If the group really wants to solve problems, it might start with a few that actually matter.