By Edward Luce

A driver is stuck in a jam in Washington. A man knocks on his window: “Terrorists have kidnapped Congress, and they’re asking for $100m otherwise they’ll burn them with gasoline,” the man says. “We’re going from car to car to get donations.” What are people giving on average, asks the driver? “Oh, about a gallon,” comes the reply.

Mischievous though it is, the joke received a good reception when it was recently circulated to an email list of Washington insiders – a group of retired diplomats and academics. It is difficult to imagine Bob Hope delivering such a gag. In today’s climate, no amount of contempt seems too much for the country’s once highly trusted democratic institutions.

Yet it would be hard to argue that Congress does not deserve it (the disdain rather than the immolation). Its approval rating recently fell to a record low of 9 per cent, which means support has shrunk to “blood relatives and paid staffers”, as a much safer joke goes. It seems that, every few days, America’s first branch of government does something to put off even its hardiest of apologists.

Last week’s Senate decision to kill a modest $60bn bill to upgrade America’s infrastructure before it came to debate may have exceeded even that august chamber’s recent record. The package, which included $10bn in seed money for a public infrastructure bank, was blocked by every Republican and two Democrats. They objected because it would have been funded by a 0.7 per cent surtax on earnings over $1m.

And that was that. At a time when US businesses prefer to hoard rather than invest their cash, and when long-term interest rates are so low the money is virtually free, the political system is unable to accomplish what ought to be a no-brainer. Until now, America has never faced an ideological divide on infrastructure: both parties accepted the need to upgrade roads, dams, bridges, energy and water systems.

Forget Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower, the presidents most often cited as having unleashed growth-boosting infrastructure – transcontinental railroads and federal highways respectively. Forget even Bill Clinton’s cheerleading for the “information superhighway”, which helped pave the way for the spread of the internet, even if Al Gore did not invent it.

We need go back only to 2005 when a Republican-controlled Capitol Hill pushed through the infamous $280bn Highways Act, which was the largest transport bill in US history. Dubbed the “Bridge to Nowhere” because it was stuffed with boondoggles, including the notorious $223m Alaskan bridge to an island of 50 people already served by ferry, the bill won near-unanimous support. A few years later, those seem like the good old days.

Whether you are the victim of another domestic flight cancellation, sitting bumper to bumper on a Los Angeles freeway, or wading through electronic gateways for a human voice at your “fast-speed” broadband provider, America’s infrastructure is fast descending to second world status. The US spends just 2 per cent of its gross domestic product on infrastructure. The European Union spends twice that, and China more than four times. It is showing.

Aviation experts have long complained about Washington’s failure to fund a move to a satellite-based air traffic system from the antiquated radars that controllers still rely on – some situated at the bonfire sites that guided early fliers. The shift would be good for growth by cutting journeys, reducing emissions and sharply improving air safety. Washington scrapped proposals to provide adequate funding last week. Thus drivers with satellite navigation systems will remain years ahead of the aircraft above them.

Or take America’s sluggish broadband. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, America’s internet speed ranks 29th out of its 34 members. Some countries, such as France, Japan and Sweden, offer average speeds more than four times greater than this found in the US. At 16,000 kilobits per second, even the unhappy people of Greece – Greece! – receive their internet faster than Americans (14,600). Thankfully the US retains a higher credit rating.

All of this was to have been given a lift by the bill. Instead, however, Republicans sprung a manoeuvre to highlight their opponents’ alleged lack of patriotism: they submitted a bill to reaffirm that “In God We Trust” remains the national motto. It was prompted by Barack Obama’s incorrect citation last year of “E pluribus unum” (“out of many, one”) as the official motto. In response to the vote, which did pass, the president said: “I trust in God but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work.”

Yet Mr Obama is not blameless. The US would need to spend more than $2,000bn in the next five years just to maintain its existing infrastructure. Last week’s bill offered only a small advance on that. There are imaginative ways Mr Obama could have offered to fund the infrastructure bank. One think-tank suggested US businesses be given a tax waiver on foreign earnings if they invest them in “reconstruction bonds”. That could have peeled off some opposition in Congress.

Instead, Mr Obama invited all-too-willing Republicans to present him with a line for his 2012 re-election campaign by getting them to vote against a minor surcharge on millionaires. In so doing, they chose Mammon rather than God. It might work politically but it is bad news for US competitiveness. Making a joke of the Republicans is tedious – they are doing it well enough by themselves. Making a serious play for what America needs to do – and why – is a different ball game. Mr Obama has yet to learn its rules.