You are Congress, and while you might yet salvage the full faith and credit of the United States by avoiding a default on the country’s obligations, you have broken faith with the people who elected you.

Polls say your approval rating is in the single digits. One wonders why it is even that high. You are a big reason people have lost faith in our government.

It is not enough to merely reach a deal that reopens the parts of the government that have been shut down for two weeks. That represents the equivalent of kissing a child’s boo-boo, when the patient has a gaping wound.

You are a House Republican of the tea party persuasion. The people outside your district blame you for the shutdown and think you are hell-bent on destroying our country for the sake of warped ideology and an irrational hatred of the president. Congratulations. You make Darth Vader look reasonable by comparison and you have besmirched the more responsible members of your party. You deserve every bit of ostracism that comes your way.

You are a congressional Democrat. The best thing that can be said about you right now is that you are not a tea party Republican, but don’t get cocky. It isn’t like your gang has provided the country with any answers lately, either. You are as much a slave to party ideology as your Republican brethren.

You are Republicans and Democrats and you take millions of dollars from lobbyists in what some have likened to a legalized form of bribery. You dispute that, and claim that you don’t vote the way you do because corporations and interest group lobbyists give you money; they give you money, you say, because they support what you stand for.

Right now you stand for a system that is broken and appears corrupt. You need the money the way an addict needs a fix. It looks like you’re more interested in job security than in doing what’s right for the country. The result has been perpetual gridlock.

You are the President of the United States. You’ve had a pretty nice ride the past few weeks, watching your approval numbers go up as Republicans cannibalized each other. But hanging around as the other guys self-destruct isn’t leadership. What have you done for us lately? The Affordable Care Act? Sorry. That’s last term’s news. You are a lame duck and your prospects for getting any meaningful legislation through Congress are dwindling by the day. You are good at lecturing, but lecturing is not leading, either, and history is about to write you off as one of its major disappointments unless you demonstrate that you can lead, not just your party, but the whole country.

You are Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Sen. Kelly Ayotte. You represent New Hampshire and have served the state well over the years. You penned a joint column this week calling for civility and bipartisanship, but your voting records suggest otherwise. Your challenge is to practice what you preach, and get your colleagues to do the same.

You are Congress and the president, and, to restore the faith of the American people, you need to do more than just reopen the government. Luckily, the fact that both parties are held in such low esteem affords you an opportunity that doesn’t come along often. In case you haven’t figured it out, this is one of those rare instances where you need each other. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, if you don’t hang together, voters may see to it that you all hang separately in the next election.

There is no shortage of things that need fixing, but you could start by rewriting the tax code, which both parties agreed in the last campaign ought to be done. Do it quickly and don’t allow the Gucci-wearing lobbyists who line your pockets and the halls of Congress to write the bill and decorate it with self-serving loopholes and exemptions. Give it to us straight. The American people deserve it, the country needs it and getting it done would be meaningful enough to suggest there might actually be hope for you.

While you’re at it, cut back on government spending and get a handle on the national debt. You won’t solve this overnight, but chipping away is a start. Stop burdening future generations with the world’s biggest credit card bill. Balance the government’s checkbook, like we have to do here in the real world.

Those things alone probably won’t make us trust you again, but they would mark a beginning. It would allow you to claim victory for the country and demonstrate that you just might stand for something besides gridlock and corruption after all.

Because reopening the government won’t be enough.

We expect you to actually govern.

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