Americans have to wonder if this Congress can do anything.

Even the most routine matters have turned into election-year fights. Partisanship trumps accomplishment, and the public’s approval rating of Congress is, not surprisingly, at a record low.

The fiasco over raising the debt ceiling late last summer made more headlines than most other fights in Congress. The latest failure to act has to do with the federal transportation bill, which has been designed as a five-year funding program to accommodate planning and long-term projects.

The most recent federal transportation funding plan expired in 2009. Since it expired, Congress has passed nine short-term extensions.

The current fight preventing passage of a new highway funding plan is aggravated by Republicans’ insertion of a provision forcing approval of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, which was opposed by President Barack Obama and most Democrats.

In addition to the politicization of a new highway funding plan, another problem is simply lack of money. The federal highway trust fund has been running out of money.

Most work on highways, bridges as well as support for public transportation comes from the federal tax on gasoline. But that tax, now at 18.4 cents a gallon, has not been raised since 1993 — and it is not even indexed for inflation.

In addition to an out-of-date tax rate funding transportation projects, Americans also are consuming less gasoline, since most modern cars are more fuel efficient than the older models they replaced.

These factors result in not enough money going into the federal highway trust fund to keep transportation spending at basic maintenance levels, let alone pay for the necessary additional investments required to bring America’s aging and crumbling roads and bridges up to the level found in the rest of the developed world.

Republicans and Democrats often talk about the need for the United States to remain competitive, yet they have failed for several years now to address the crumbling infrastructure in this country. If today’s dysfunctional Congress had existed in the 1950s, the Interstate Highway System promoted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower never would have been built.

The constant bickering and posturing in Washington is hurting America’s competitiveness.

There is no doubt that budgets everywhere are tight, but someone in Congress should demonstrate some leadership and step up to propose slowly raising the gasoline tax, to a level that at least reflects inflation since 1993. House Republicans are apparently so adamant about not raising any taxes that they cannot support even modest increases in the gasoline tax rate for highway funding. The failure to invest in infrastructure reinforces the idea that the United States is in decline and cannot compete with the rest of the world.

Drivers understand that it takes money to build or repair roads and bridges and that a declining balance in the highway trust fund will lead to a transportation infrastructure in even worse shape than it is today.

An article in The Economist magazine noted the nine short-term extensions to fund transportation and featured a headline saying, “How not to fund infrastructure.” The article also noted that “with record-low interest rates, idle construction workers and a huge backlog of worthy projects, there has never been a better time to invest in infrastructure.”

That’s all true. But Congress would rather play politics.