During his weekly update, Sanders disputed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s statement last week that the “recession is very likely over.” While the recession, according to Bernanke’s textbook definition, could very well be over, millions of American’s are still feeling the effects of the worst economic contraction in decades. Unemployment may be holding around 9.7 percent, it’s the real employment rate of nearly 17 percent—as Sanders notes—that is the most telling. Real unemployment takes into account those who have stopped looking for work or cannot find jobs, because they believe none exist. Millions of Americans are experiencing this and too many cannot afford to keep their home or pay for the costs of their health care. For these Americans, the recession is not over.

You may or may not agree with Sanders’ political views, but I think his remarks hit on what seems to be the Beltway-Main Street disconnect—it is far too easy for those of us in Washington, D.C. to get bogged down in lofty policy proposals or economic reports that we ignore the realities for those living in America’s Heartland or throughout the Sunbelt and along the borders of the Southwest.

It’s not just bureaucrats—all too often, Congress appears comfortable in its status as a terribly unpopular branch of U.S. government. It is even more troubling that a group of professionals and civil servants—who, every two or six years, spend untold millions of dollars on consultants, polling and focus groups to learn how to get voters to like them, but cannot figure out that a majority of American’s disapprove of they way do their job. While troubling, this is not terribly surprising—all it takes to win an election is 51 percent of the vote, sometimes less. Congress doesn’t necessarily act in the interest of 60, 80 or even 90 percent of its constituents. Instead, far too many Senators and Representatives seem to perform a delicate dance based on appealing to a slim majority of voters and nothing more.