Legislators lurching from crisis to crisis should be declared cruel and irresponsible.

The trouble with making “functional” government the great aspiration of the American experiment – as so many pundits and politicians do – is that a smoothly operating Congress is not necessarily moral, humane or even economically smart.

It is important to remember this disconnect as we consider the budget deal announced late Tuesday by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Washington.

“This agreement breaks through the recent dysfunction to prevent another government shutdown and roll back sequestration’s cuts to defense and domestic investments in a balanced way,” said Murray.

Ryan was equally self-congratulatory, declaring that – after a fall that saw a government shutdown, nasty wrangling over the historically uncontroversial task of raising the debt ceiling and general congressional dysfunction – he and Murray improved the status quo.

“This agreement makes sure that we don’t have a government shutdown scenario in January,” Ryan added.

Murray and Ryan are excited they had stopped fighting long enough to agree to $63 billion in “sequester relief” and $23 billion in net deficit reduction. They are also glad they have set the discretionary spending level for fiscal year 2014 at $1.012 trillion, while setting the level at $1.014 trillion for fiscal year 2015.

What of the 1.3 million jobless Americans who now stand to lose federal unemployment benefits three days after Christmas?

The budget agreement does not look like a “step in the right direction” for them. And unless Democrats succeed in renewing benefits in a distinct piece of legislation that must pass as Congress moved rapidly toward recess, many of the most economically vulnerable Americans will be lurching from crisis to crisis very soon.

Their crisis is our crisis. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, extending benefits for the long-term unemployed would boost a still slow economy by 0.2 percent in the coming year – creating 200,000 needed jobs.

RYAN AND MURRAY FAILED IN THEIR MOST BASIC HUMANITARIAN AND ECONOMIC DUTIES.

Without providing for the extension, something that easily and appropriately could have been done in the budget agreement, Ryan and Murray failed in their most basic humanitarian and economic duties.

And what of the federal workers and members of the military who will be required to take what is effectively a pay cut in order to pay more for their retirement benefits?

Members of the House and Senate who are paid $174,000 annually, collect generous benefits and – thanks to redistricting and an incumbent-rewarding campaign finance system – enjoy no small measure of job security, can pat themselves on the back for breaking through “the recent dysfunction.” But forcing others to lurch from crisis to crisis so that they can tell themselves they have taken “a step in the right direction” is socially and economically dysfunctional.

JOHN NICHOLS is a correspondent for The Nation.