Statement of the obvious

[Ret10Echo]

Not surprising at all.

Congress logs most futile legislative year on record
Outlook for House, Senate also shows scant accomplishment for ‘12 session
By Stephen Dinan
-
The Washington Times
Sunday, January 15, 2012

It’s official: Congress ended its least-productive year in modern history after passing 80 bills — fewer than during any other session since year-end records began being kept in 1947.

Furthermore, an analysis by The Washington Times of the scope of such activities as time spent in debate, number of conference reports produced and votes taken on the House and Senate floors found that Congress set a record for legislative futility by accomplishing less in 2011 than any other year in history.

Full article here


What really chaps me is how much it costs to keep this den of thieves in business Unfortunately for us there is a strange sort of attitude that a majority of voters in any given district don't see their representative as worthless...but the collective

[Billy L-bach]

isn't the administration boasting about how much they have got done during this term?

I am so confused

[rdret1]

That was a good article, but it seems to stress quantity vs. quality; not that anything of real quality has come out of this bunch either. I would rather see Congress pass a handful of common-sense, high quality bills, over a crap load of nonsense any day!

[Ret10Echo]

Originally Posted by rdret1

That was a good article, but it seems to stress quantity vs. quality; not that anything of real quality has come out of this bunch either. I would rather see Congress pass a handful of common-sense, high quality bills, over a crap load of nonsense any day!

I would be happy if they could pass the budget prior to the 2nd quarter of the year which it is applicable.

The rest of their quantity just creates more problems.

[Airbornelawyer]

Originally Posted by rdret1

That was a good article, but it seems to stress quantity vs. quality; not that anything of real quality has come out of this bunch either. I would rather see Congress pass a handful of common-sense, high quality bills, over a crap load of nonsense any day!

Indeed.

Given Congress's record over the years of passing legislation where more thought seems to have been given to coming up with a catchy name for the bill than to coming up with a constitutional justification for the power to implement the legislation, and given Congress's tendency to pass bills with lots of vague, ill-thought-out details and leave it to regulatory agencies to fill in the details with rulemaking, how is it a bad thing that this Congress passed fewer such bills than those predecessors?

[sinjefe]

The fact that they passed the fewest number of bills in modern history is a good thing. It is functioning closer to what I would have hoped. As close to zero bills as possible would have been better.

[Ret10Echo]

Originally Posted by sinjefe

The fact that they passed the fewest number of bills in modern history is a good thing. It is functioning closer to what I would have hoped. As close to zero bills as possible would have been better.

But if you had to weight the product, a low volume of "Dedicate a day to boneless chickens" is a waste of my money as a taxpayer.

If that low volume had value then I would agree with the "fewer is better"

In the end they are still basically worthless when it comes to answering the mail on what is important.

[Billy L-bach]

So many comedians have noted that 'pro is the opposite on con', therefore CONgress must be the opposite of PROgress...
...I reckon those comedians may have a point.

And one of the things they seem to have been successful at putting on the table is now keeping me from surfing Wikipedia for mildly accurate, yet entertaining party-trivia


...scummy politicians