Worse Than a ‘Do Nothing’ Congress
For the past several decades of divisive American politics, there has been a game played by pundits and politicians alike: Is this Congress the least productive ever? I know it has been said before, but this 118th Congress may actually be the worst one yet. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from North Carolina who is calling it quits, labeled it “a very actively stupid political environment.”
First, let’s look at the hard, head-shaking facts:
Congress passed just 27 laws. In. One. Year. Only one congressional session has had a worse record: The 1931-32 Congress in the middle of the Great Depression passed 21 laws, but it met for only three months.
By comparison, in 2022, Congress passed 308 laws with similarly slim majorities in both chambers.
Of the 27 laws passed by the 118th Congress, one approved a new commemorative coin and two renamed buildings.
This works out to $3,453,304 of taxpayer money per bill. And that’s a conservative number. We considered only the salaries of the elected representatives in our calculation.
Besides failing to pass just about any bill, there are several doozies that this Congress actively shelved: a budget, a five-year farm bill (usually a bipartisan effort), and the reauthorization of the FAA bill, a measure designed to modernize air travel and make it safer.
It took 15 rounds for the House to choose a speaker, and then said speaker was ousted from the job less than 10 months later. In 234 years, neither had ever happened in the House of Representatives.
Then it took three weeks to elect another speaker, and the House was once again paralyzed.
Three House members were censured and one ousted, also a record for any Congress.
A Republican House member, thinking he was a 7th grader at recess, accused Kevin McCarthy, the former Speaker of the House (a fellow Republican, mind you) of elbowing him in the kidney.
A senator almost goaded a committee witness into a fistfight.
Is it any wonder a recent Gallup poll put Congress’s approval rating at 13%? The only surprise is that it hit double digits.
One might shed some crocodile tears for the House members, all of whom are up for reelection. A big benefit of running as an incumbent is that representatives can point to things they did, funding they brought home to their district, or a bill they sponsored that helped their constituents. But this year, there is virtually nothing to point to. Imagine the upcoming campaign slogan: “We’ll happily take your money to sit on our hands!”
Rep. Chip Roy, a MAGA Republican from Texas, complained openly to his caucus about this. “One thing. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing — one! — that I can go campaign on and say we did. Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me, one meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done.” Really?
Another GOP House member, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, decided to bend the truth a bit in an effort to pad his record. According to MinnPost.com, in a press release and newsletter to constituents, Emmer touted millions in funding he secured for special projects in his district. One problem — the funding was part of a bill rejected by the Senate. None of that money will ever make it to Minnesota.
We can joke about these 535 legislators who don’t legislate yet are paid $174,000 a year, but real people are affected by their lack of effectiveness. Governing is hard, and compromise is required, especially with razor-thin majorities in both houses. But that is what they were elected to do.
Part of the background and in the shadows are forces of the far right who want to undermine and eventually demolish the institutions of our government. An impotent Congress suits them just fine.
Some people may consider all of this to be ho-hum or old news, but a do-nothing Congress is more than just unhealthy for a country such as ours; it’s downright dangerous.
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So much of Congress's antics are, as Dan says, part of the darkness of the far right's intentions. The "very actively stupid" representatives have, in my opinion, an agenda: to create chaos and undermine our democratic system. What angers me is these traitors were elected by American voters. It is time for citizens to Wake up, get Scared, and push back -hard- against these Treasonous forces.
We, the people, can correct and eliminate this situation. If we, the people, do not act and vote to do so, the situation will destroy our ability to make changes.