IMHO, a large part of the reason we’re at the point we are now is a perception within the beltway that there will never be any serious repercussions from anything they do.
Your complaint seems more with the voters who enable this mindset than with the government they’ve elected. Want to change things? Win elections.
I see just the opposite. I believe that most of the folks in Congress are so fearful of "serious repercussions" (defined by them as being voted out of office) that they more or less do nothing. Most of them try hard to do nothing and that's because they fear loss of office.