The Hill News

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) blamed legislators who refused to negotiate on increasing the debt ceiling for Congress's record-low approval ratings.

"I resent the fact that a small group of people in the Untied States Congress are painting the entire Congress with this broad brush because of their unwillingness to do what many of us are prepared to do," Kerry said Friday on MSNBC. "We need adults â€" thoughtful people who are willing to come to the table and negotiate.

"The problem is not the institution, it's the people," Kerry continued. "And it's a small group of people who don't negotiate. If you're not willing to negotiate, nobody can make something happen. We had a group of people who actually argued for default."

Kerry's comments come after a new New York Times/CBS News poll found that only 14 percent of registered voters think members of Congress should be reelected and 74 percent say they don't deserve another term.

The poll came a few days after legislators passed a debt-ceiling increase package that raised the debt limit by $2.1 trillion while cutting $1 trillion over 10 years and setting up a committee to find an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction. The legislation's passage marked the end of contentious and oftentimes frustrating negotiations on raising the debt ceiling.

Throughout the negotiations, some legislators complained that conservative House Republicans had been holding up a debt-limit increase agreement by refusing any reasonable offer and pushing Republican leaders to appease their right flank in the negotiations.