New York's former mayor Ed Koch used to begin every public meeting he convened with a question: "How'm I doing?" It was at once a reflection of his famous insecurity and also a statement of confidence. For in fact, after steering New York from the brink of bankruptcy, he was doing pretty well, and he loved hearing people tell him so. It was also his way of taking his public's pulse.

The latest AARP Bulletin poll had the same objective. With the 2008 elections in mind, we asked prospective voters about their top concerns. We wanted to learn the priorities of the country's 50-plus population. After all, more than half of voters are over 50, a group traditionally more likely to vote than younger people. So this is an election that you could decide.

More important, as taxpayers, as homeowners, as a sandwich generation and as workers, you face new pressures and dynamics in a rapidly changing world.

Here are the headlines: Fifty-plus voters are more concerned with higher health and prescription drug costs than younger voters. They are concerned about the future of Social Security. And they put a lower priority on education and terrorism than younger voters.

But their major concern is government competence—making government work. Little wonder. In the past two decades, Washington has been paralyzed by venomous partisanship. Too much has been left undone—47 million Americans lack health insurance, the nation's security is compromised by porous borders and a fractured network of surveillance. The intelligence community failed to anticipate the fall of the Soviet Union, didn't detect the imminent attacks of 9/11 and exaggerated the risk of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The federal government's failed response to Hurricane Katrina has left a legacy of mismanagement that persists. The Social Security Administration, long the poster child of government efficiency, is now stymied by an understaffed and overwhelmed bureaucracy with a three-year backlog of people seeking disability benefits. As successful as the conquest of Saddam Hussein may have been, Iraq's reconstruction has been marked by inefficiency and waste. Perhaps no failure is more poignant than the failure to anticipate the volume and range of physical and psychological injuries inflicted on soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan or to adequately track and care for the wounded soldiers once they returned home.

It's not a pretty picture, especially in an election year. This is a time when the public rates officeholders and has an opportunity to weigh what it wants government to do and not do. Voters reward competence. Voters also set institutions in new directions.

Koch's "How'm I doing?" question is not one you hear much in Washington these days. Not many officials are taking bows for the government's performance. You don't hear much applause from voters either. They know too well that the institutions of government need attention. There is no higher priority for the next president, the next Congress and the next generation of officeholders than to put government back on track. Fix those broken essential parts of the federal bureaucracy. Find a way for the White House and Congress to work together. "How'm I doing?" deserves a better answer.