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Subscribe to RSSAccording to a recent Gallup poll, only 18% of Americans say they approve of the work this Congress has done -- so it's more than likely it won’t go down as one of the more popular congressional bodies.
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
Construction continues on the viewing stands for President Barack Obama's January's Inauguration Day ceremonies, early Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
But with only weeks to go before it concludes, the 112th Congress (2011-2012) is on track to make another type of history.
By passing just 196 bills into law so far, it is in the running to become the least productive Congress since the 1940s.
In fact, that amount is 710 fewer public laws than was produced by the 80th Congress (from 1947-48), which first earned the moniker "Do-Nothing" Congress.
The lack of legislation passed by Congress in recent years has become frustrating to many lawmakers. Outgoing Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) decided not to run for re-election because of the congressional gridlock, partisan politics, and lack of work being done on Capitol Hill.
Rep.-elect Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., and Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., talk about the possibility of a bipartisan deal to avoid the fiscal cliff.
“As I have long said, what motivates me is producing results for those who have entrusted me to be their voice and their champion, and I am filled with that same sense of responsibility today as I was on my first day in the Maine House of Representatives. I do find it frustrating, however, that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions,” Snowe said in a statement announcing her retirement last February.
The U.S. House Clerk’s office keeps official records of all congressional activity dating as far back as 1947. During those 65 years and 33 different Congresses, more than 20,000 public laws have been passed.
The 104th Congress (1995-1996) currently holds the record low for passing the fewest pieces of legislation since 1947 -- just 333 bills were passed into law during that two-year span.
A non-partisan group determined to fix the sky-rocketing national debt went to Capitol Hill Wednesday, meeting with both Republican and Democratic leaders. David Cote, chairman and CEO of Honeywell, was among the leaders and he recapped the meeting to NBC's Andrea Mitchell.
The 107th Congress (2001-2002) is next, passing only 377 new laws during its time in Washington.
To avoid earning the distinction as the least productive Congress since 1947, 138 bills must move through the House and Senate before the end of this Congress next month.
And with just 11 scheduled voting days left before the House’s target adjournment date for the year -- and with all eyes fixed on the looming fiscal cliff -- time is running out.
The number of bills passed into law by Congress since 1947:
80th: 906
81st: 921
82nd: 594
83rd: 781
84th: 1,028
85th: 936
86th: 800
87th: 885
88th: 666
89th: 810
90th: 640
91st: 695
92nd: 607
93rd: 649
94th: 588
95th: 634
96th: 613
97th: 473
98th: 623
99th: 664
100th: 713
101st: 650
102nd: 590
103rd: 465
104th: 333
105th: 394
106th: 580
107th: 377
108th: 498
109th: 482
110th: 460
111th: 383
112th: 196 (so far)
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History will show the American people approved as notice many of the same FreeLoading Law Makers got back in office. Obama can work as hard as he wants with this group but he will realize this is not an intelligent/educated/sane group of elected officials. The home grown terrorist have paid to get their puppets elected and many Americans are so stupid they don't see it. Look Romney degraded 47% of Americans which included Military, seniors, students, unemployed and some working two/three jobs. Mitt agreed with the insults and War on Women while people smiled and voted for him. Just think even Mitt's own wife was insulted and Mitt stayed silent and her 5 sons while President Obama defended Ann Romney. Now that was sad.
There is little question that this GOP congress's sole purpose was and is to serve as a road block to protect the interests of the wealthy.
Let's all remember what we have witnessed during their time in office,...
...and LET IT GUIDE OUR VOTES FOR THE NEXT GENERATION.
Hillary Clinton in 2016 and 2020 !!
They are drawing a line in the sand. Their intentions are clear.
Let the 95% unite,....the middle class and the working class,....to insure that our will is done.
In the next election, we will have the chance to let the GOP know our displeasure with their unproductive, non-stop obstructionism.
KICK THE UNPRODUCTIVE GOP OBSTRUCTIONISTS OUT OF OFFICE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
This has to be the worst Congress in our history. It's also chock-full of "tea party favorites." Let's not forget their names and their association with this shameful Congress: Michele Bachmann, Paul Ryan, McConnell, Cantor...etc, because they won't go away even if they get voted out. They'll come back to run for something else; like the blood-sucking cockroaches they are, they won't be eradicated, just subdued. VOTE THEM OUT and KEEP them OUT. Your freedom depends on it.
Not sure about it being the worst congress, the entire congress would have to be Democrat for that to happen!
But I am absolutley positive we have the worst president in history in office again.. that's for sure!
There you go Brian, with friends like Mitch McConnell and Boehner and the non-secret vow that the Republicans made to ensure the President failed, and to block and obstruct everything for the last two years. Plus an added bonus, filibuster proof Senate lasted only 4 1/2 months, after Teddy Kennedy died and Scott Brown slithered in the President no longer had a filibuster proof Senate and it was all down hill from there.
Fire All of Congress! Cut their benefits Live the way that the real Americans live or survive. Citizens speak your mind, let them know.
That's 196 laws too many. Wee need more of this type of gridlock. Assinine and stupid tax increases and laws like "DumboCare" need not be passed.
I hope the 113th Congress is just as useless. The less these jackasses do, the better for productive, taxpaying Americans. The only people affected by do-nothing congresses are Dumbo's constituents - "adult parasite losers" and the deadbeats in Cleveland and Detroit.
You're an idiot on so many levels I don't even know where to start. You think the poor are the only ones affected by this worthless Congress? You best keep in mind, the wealthy class sits upon the middle class. Break the middle class and guess what happens to the wealthiest.
Seek help for your blind, stupid hatred.
Does it hurt to be that bigoted and ignorant? The only adult parasite-losers I know of are the Honey Boo-Boo watchers who reside in the backwoods of southern red states, make much less than $15,000/year because their wives work at Wal-Mart making minimum wage, and are on foodstamps or social security disability, or both. These people (mostly white males) consistently vote against their own best economic interests because the Republicans, knowing they're both stupid and racist, have successfully convinced them that some Hispanic or African-American is going to come take their doublewide away. These are the real "adult parasite losers."
Nope it's the rampant baby making black males that have 5 kids by 4 momas and then stand in welfare lines because they don't "want" to work that are the real parasites. You know, just like the ones interviewed by Pelosi's daughter in that youtube video.
Go ahead and lie some more, we all know it for what it is.
Hey you threw out white males I threw back black males...
Want more black male stats since you like race baiting? Why is it black males make up only 6% of the population but the majority of crimes and the majority of prison inmates are.. you guessed it... black males?
Waiting...
republicanbs
That's why the Republicans are locking up Obama... to keep HIM from breaking the middles class! The Republicans KNOW the middle class support the wealthy and that new wealth COMES from the middle class. THAT is why they are blocking Obama and preventing him from DESTROYING the middle class in order to give FREE SH*T to FREELOADERS!!!
Yeah right, amazing the GOP lost.
So what ths article is telling me is that my do-nothing, ineffectual republican congressman gets paid over $154,000/year with lifetime pension benefits and free health insurance, is provided a full time staff of secretaries and assistants (also with nice salaries and benefits), just to work a couple of days a week doing nothing but sit on his butt up in Congress and obstruct anything the Democrats try to do. Hey, if you conservatives don't mind paying out this kind of money for people who sit around picking their noses and shooting off some press releases justifying the fact they're ripping off the American taxpayers, you're way dumber than I originally thought.
Diane, nailed it very well, vilifying the least of our society but yet belly up to the Federal trough faster than greased lightening.
As effective Congress's go, I prefer the ones that do little or nothing. We do not pay Congress members to make new laws. An effective Congress can even repeal some bad legislation approved by previous law makers. We have no pressing reason for more laws. With every new law, the citizens lose freedoms and it cost us to do so because no new law pays for itself.
Don't worry so much, Gene, about the laws passed by Congress.
They pass a law and then figure out ways to get around enforcing the laws through waivers, executive orders, lawsuits and targeted forgiveness.
It will get to the point one day that no one will take the actions of Congress or the laws of our land seriously.
hmmm, seems kind if funny to read on here how everyone wants to just blame the Republicans for the mess Congress is in. The Republican controlled House has passed a budget every year they have been in control, they have passed many jobs bills, economic stimulating bills, yet Harry Reid as the Senate Majority Leader gets to decide what bills come before the Senate for debate or discussion. So let's put a lot of the blame right where it belongs on the Senate Majority leader. If you want to pass any legislation it needs the consent of both Houses of Congress. If the Senate Majority Leader refuses to allow debate on any bill passed by the House, you can get NO BILL before the President for signature.
So, it's not just Republicans who are the bad boys here
The republicans put forth NO bills that didn't have either PORK or BULL attached.
Thank God Harry Reid can spot both.
Rep, most of those bills also had anti-abortion, anti-planned parenthood riders, worthless, good thing Reid sat on them.
Nearly every bill passed by the house was declared Dead On Arrival by Senator Reid. He could have reconciled those bills and removed the anti abortion, planned parenthood riders and pork and sent them back to the House as revised. Instead, he's just become a crotchety, power consumed man, stomping his feet while throwing good ideas on the shelves.
How I wish there was some reasonable leadership in Washington.
Candice, the bills we speak of would have to go back to committee be reworked and resubmitted, filibuster would rule again, and again, and again. better to let them die and gather dust. Still amazed that the Vets Job Bill got voted down by the House Republicans, as well as the Equal Pay for Equal Work.
skyparrot,
I've always been a proponent of clean bills. Good things could happen - like the Vets Job Bill, if it had been focused on workable ways to secure jobs for vets. There's a lot of reasons Equal Pay for Equal Work should have fizzled.
We should send the Senate a few cartons of Sharpies. If they receive a bill full of unrelated pork and provisions, black out those parts and get it back to the House to redo it. Eventually they might get the idea to leave out the unnecessary, excessive and unrelated and pass some laws that might make it to the Senate for discussion and do the people good. (And Sharpies are made in America!)
Republicans gerrymandered their way to control of the House.
And yet the voters put the most unproductive congress in power and then reelected them. So who is to blame? Quit blaming the other party, the problem may lie in that we have parties.
Smart, I guarantee if Republican State Legislatures hadn't gerrymandered their districts the bags would have been soundly booted, happened here in Lee County, Florida. Gerrymandering the best friend the republicans can have.
On November 6, I voted against any Congressman in office and voted the best competitor I felt in. Republican or Democrat. If they were in I voted against them. The rest of the whiner voting public didn't.
Yank, I did the same, I do not vote strictly on party-lines, I voted for an Independent to my lights, he was the best qualified, the favored republican won and not by much, but still won, and he's back in lock-step with the others, maybe next time.
skyparrot - district lines were redrawn and gerrymandering knocked out our few Republican representatives in Illinois. The crayons of re-mapping were the best friends the Democrats could have here. So I guess it goes both ways.
Candice, yes it does work both ways but not in all states obviously. I am still amazed Bachmann retained her seat, well maybe not, and we know Ryan lost his home town but not the county. Its up to us to boot the worst and hope there would be a best in the offing. We got rid of West, again not by much but he is gone, so it can be done.
Skyparrot - I agree about Michelle Bachmann. Yikes. She turned out to be a very poor, very frightening self proclaimed rep of the Republicans.
My district, which was for years held by decent Republicans - Henry Hyde, Peter Roskam (before he got too immersed in DC talking points)....even Democrat Melissa Bean was reasonable. My most recent rep and local loony toon, Joe Walsh was bested by Tammy Duckworth this year.
I'm afraid I have no voice in my area. I doubt very much if Congresswoman Duckworth gives a hoot about my concerns.
The lines that are drawn make a difference. Differences that last.
Candice, yes Henry Hyde was one of the best an honorable statesmen, congratulations on shedding Walsh, a true success story for Ms. Duckworth. a question if you will, how did Walsh stay out of the slammer regarding the back child support or did he cough it up and move on?
I will say that Mr. Walsh has a history of personal financial debacles, which should have disqualified him as a steward of tax payer money and interests in the first place. Plus he's a loose cannon easily set off with a bit too much coffee. That said.....
Divorces get messy. They are hurtful, emotional, vindictive and all the worse when a public figure is involved. He and his wife settled.....like ex-couples generally do when things settle down. The story was portrayed originally as if he were skipping out on his toddler kids. Turns out, his kids are teenagers. (I don't think denying child support for older kids is acceptable but the story loses some of the shock value when the kids aren't in diapers...).
The kids made some campaign commercials pleading for the issue to be dropped. Maybe they helped convince mom to agree to a settlement.
Maybe we should make the pay a piecework rate
They'd starve, since most have never missed a meal, might do them some good.
Congress is not there to make laws, they are there to represent us. you would think that after 200 years we would have enough laws. We probably need to repeal about half of them.
Gene, very nicely put. Productive Congresses got us into this mess.
Who really cares???
ALL Politicians do not give a rat's ass America and it's citizens.
This is just one more thing to keep us distracted, divided and ignorant.
All they care about is themselves, their cronies and the money they can rake in.
I'm sick of it all.
America has been sold to the highest bidders.
The Dream is over.
Rob, the Dream is not over, it is up to us to preserve and improve the Dream, let your voice mean something, call your Representative and tell them what you expect and want from them, after all we (collectively) hired them and fire them. I for one plan on opening a big can of whoop ass on my Rep. We got rid of Alan West, it can be done.
Now if we could just get rid of that useless piece of trash currently sitting in the oval office!!
Go home Brian, your hatred for the President is eating away at you, let go of some of the anger, good for the soul and you'll feel better.
Awwwwww.... poor Brian.... still unwilling to admit that that the GOP ran a corporate raider for President and lost. And obviously too stupid to also see that a Romney win would have made sure that Brian lived in his double wide making minimum wage forever.
Easy enough to fix...Just pay attention and TAKE NAMES! Then when they come up for election, throw theirs asses OUT! Fire enough of 'em and the rest will get the message. Woulda thought the GOP would have learned from the last election, but I guess what they say is true...you really CAN'T fix stupid.
wish that would work, but many voter's only vote for one party regardless of how good or bad they are.
As much as I think Congress as a hole suck, they all get paid way to much and there benefits, and pension they get piss me off more than anything. I don't see low amount of laws passed being a bad thing, but if not for a f-up two party system this country would be nothing more than a dictatorship.
If there was a way to get term limits imposed on them, as those that been there for 30+ years have no interest in anything except keeping there seat, we would be far better off.
Term limits unfortunately are a state issue and don't see anything happening on that end with all of the republican controlled state legislatures. Getting a Federal Law, need a Constitutional Amendment and that won't happen.
Has nothing to do with who is in office. Does not mater if Repub or Dem, nobody in Washington is going to bring up the idea of term limits.
As effective Congress's go, I prefer the ones that do little or nothing. We do not pay Congress members to make new laws. An effective Congress can even repeal some bad legislation approved by previous law makers. We have no pressing reason for more laws. With every new law, the citizens lose freedoms and it cost us to do so because no new law pays for itself.
Then I suggest we put the House of Reps. on notice that they have had their hours cut and are now going to be making min. wage, just like Walmart employees, plus they would get the added benefit for being eligible for food stamps, just like Walmart employees, maybe a wake up call to remind these arrogant slugs whom they really work for.
Why just the House of Reps? The Senate is just as bad.
Let's go over the cliff, taxes for everyone, the liberal dream-wwweeeeee weeeeeee wwwweeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!
I still say the worst congress was the 110th under Nancy Pelosi. You would think with full control, filibuster proof, of House and Senate, an enormous opportunity was there to deal with everything from immigration, to national debt, national deficit, jobs and whole wealth of ills that needed to be dealt with. But they couldn't deal with a simple, basic thing like a budget. Yes, they had it all and just blew it and opened the door for the Republicans. At least the Democrats had the chance.
Total malfeanse.
In a recent article here on msn, " 11 things wrong with Congress" (ok so we all know there are more than 11--google the story) at least half of them could be classified under one heading--self interest . We need to just clean house and get some reforms on the books that will make service to the country the only interest.
Our congress and president spend way to much money!! If we ran our finances like congress and the president run this country WE WOULD ALL BE BANKRUPT.
The non-believers and atheists idiots now want to remove the crosses on the graves of our military veterans who died for America. Don't you think it is about time the majority of Americans wake up and see what these imbeciles are doing to your country. Massive spending, massive handouts, and idiots running loose with their far left and progressive agenda! Well you have another 4 years of more stupidity coming!!
We know..
Rick who told you that? Prove it, cite source please? If true that would mean the Star of David and the Crescent would be removed too, I don't believe it.
When we interred my Nephew, casualty of bush's bogus war, in the National Cemetery in Calverton, NY we were asked for religious affiliation and a cross was put on his marker. I believe you are wrong and buying into baloney rumors.
Check factcheck.org. Dont worry, this would be a tough one to enforce.
Well let's see people. A quick tally of the laws passed since 1947 tell me more than 15,000 laws have been passed. For crying out loud, how many more do we need??????????????? It was said back in the 1980's that California had more than 1 MILLION laws on their book. WOW. I guess that is how politicians justify their paychecks. So Sad.
Just remember, Liberals are all about making more laws.
And you see how their 1 million laws have worked so well for them, bankruptcy and all. I would hope that our elected leaders aren't in a "law-passing" contest as so many seem to think should be. Seeing as how they are passing "Federal" laws that affect every citizen, since they're Federal, I would hope they look to be very cautious in passing these laws. But I guess a bunch of laws is what you get, like the yet to be read by the politicians that voted on it, Obamacare, when you have idiots voting for idiots. Our elected officials, on both sides, show the sad state of our educational system.
They said they would do nothing, that is exactly what they did and yet they still failed to make Obama a one term president. What a bunch of pathetic losers.
Judging the productiveness of Congress on the number of laws passed is missing the point. It's not the quantity that's important, it's the quality of the laws passed that matters. In many cases, the laws passed are redundant to already existing laws that are difficult to enforce, or their laws that are convoluted or difficult to understand, which overloads our judicial system.
Sometimes political gridlock is our friend . . .
Chris, not only did Mitch McConnell, as his #1 goal - lose in his bid to see Barack Obama serve only one term, but he also lost his #2 goal - to become Senate Majority Leader.
McConnell had a bad election day. A really bad election day.
As did Grover Norquist. And Mitt Romney. And Scott Brown. And a few others.
Better luck next time. We should all hope that he loses in his next bid for re-election.
The more revenue this government takes in the more it spends and they will keep coming back for more of our tax dollars and keep spending. Maybe the need to become more frugal.
Now, how many Bills were passed in the HOUSE and blocked by the Senate. The Senate has NOT passed a budget in almost four YEARS, and the Senate is controlled by who, Democrats! Actually the fewer laws they pass the better for the country.
This obstructionist, partisan congress has been the worse in my lifetime. They know exactly what all of us, democrat or republican expect of them and just continue to do nothing to help tthe middle class, reduce the deficit, shore up SS and Medciaire. They can't even agree to do much of anything for our military men and women who so desprately deserve help wehn they return. Absolutely pathetic.
Vets Job Bill got voted down by House Republicans, Ryan's "marvelous" budget calls for a 13% cut in VA budget and benefits. The only thing that appears to attract the Republican undying devotion is to Defense Contractors, and war, forget about those that become cannon fodder, they are not worth the notice. Despicable.