Did John Bohner give us a Do-Nothing Congress?
Barring a burst of productivity in the lame-duck session in November and December, the 112th Congress is set to enter the Congressional record books as the least productive body in the post-World War II era. It had passed a mere 173 public laws as of last month. That was well below the 906 enacted from January 1947 through December 1948 by the body President Harry S. Truman referred to as the “do-nothing” Congress, and far fewer than many prior Congresses have passed in a single session.
So far, Boehner’s Congress has passed 733 fewer laws than the Do-Nothing Congress of 1947-48. The least productive Congress in history passed more than five times as many bills as Boehner’s Congress. Try to wrap your mind around that.
Harry Truman successfully won reelection by branding a Congress as “Do-Nothing” that was 81% more productive than John Boehner’s Congress. Forget the part about “barring a burst of productivity,” Boehner did less in two years than almost any Congress has done in one year. He and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have ground our government to a halt during a time of record unemployment, and they expect the American people to respond by rewarding them and electing a total dick like Mitt Romney to take the president’s place.
That isn’t going to happen. But the House and Senate Republicans deserve a beating. I hope people realize just how historically awful they have been.
The Do-Nothing Congress was actually 526-percent more productive.
Err, 523. Getting sleepy.
Boeher’s was 81-percent less productive, btw.
Are you using your tumbler as a calculator?
Nope. 906 is 5.23 times more than 173, right? That’s 523 percent, last I checked. If the Do-Nothing Congress had been 81-percent more effective, it would have have passed 313 bills. 173 x .81 = 140 + 173 = 313.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentage#Percentage_increase_and_decrease
A very common mistake, the not so common mistake is to use the wrong number to make your political enemy look better than they really are. 😛
Weren’t most of those 173 naming post offices (not the post office’s fault) and designating special days?
Unfortunately, the media and most of the public still tend to blame “Congress” and not the Republicans. Because that would be partisan!
Since the laws Congress passes, from the Patriot Act on down, are not necessarily good, I don’t think this is a good metric of anything. With both houses and the White House, I have no doubt that the Republicans would do a tremendous amount, almost all of it bad. Do-nothing Congress is a lot better than that. It means there is little legislative legacy of the tea party wave.
Obama has done well considering the how Congress was a brick wall, even the blue dog democrats were an obstacle
When are the Democratic campaign organizations and advertising campaigns going to make that point?
Also you have to consider that for some people, a Congress that does nothing is a good thing in principle. The problem with this Congress is that in a lot of cases (tanking the US credit rating and the sequester bill, for example) what they have done is horrid.
Let’s dock their pay. Make them pay back to the Treasury their salaries for the past year commensurate to the work they didn’t do.