This article states that Congress in 2011 passed fewer bills, did less debating, held fewer votes etc. etc. than in any Congressional year since records have been kept since, well, whenever it was started.
I'm not sure why they phrase it as a BAD thing, though.
The Framers deliberately designed this government to be a cantankerous, difficult machine for getting anything done... because they believed that people could get along just fine without government sticking its nose into eveything, regulating everything, restricting everything. Or at least most things. The way they designed it, four very different groups had to agree before any bill could become law and stay that way: (1) a group of citizen-legislators (House), (2) a group of professional politicians (Senate), a single man of high integrity (President), and a group of men sitting as judges, who were often lawyers (Courts). Only if all four of those groups all agreed, could a bill become a law and not get tossed out later.
Some of those definitions, especially the third, might sound unfamiliar today. But that's how they designed it.
Sounds to me like, at long last, government is starting to act exactly as it is supposed to. The fewer regulations and restrictions (that's ALL a government can do) that get passed, the better off we all are.
And we can directly thank the House freshmen of 2010, who, also at long last, hold similar views to the Framers themselves.
So what's the problem here?
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Congress logs most futile legislative year on record - Washington Times
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.
The Senate’s record was weakest by a huge margin, according to the futility index, and the House had its 10th-worst session on record.
Of the bills the 112th Congress did pass, the majority were housekeeping measures, such as naming post office buildings or extending existing laws. Sometimes, it was too difficult for the two chambers to hammer out agreements. More often, the Senate failed to reach agreement within the chamber.
That left much of the machinery of the federal government on autopilot, with the exception of spending, where monumental clashes dominated the legislative session.
“Absent unified party control with a bolstered Senate majority, I think it’s just very hard to get things done, particularly in a period when revenues aren’t growing and the decisions are how to cut, and how to cut in the long term,” said Sarah Binder, who studies Congress as a Brookings Institution scholar and professor at George Washington University. “Congress just isn’t very good at solving long-term problems.”
The futility record could be short-lived. The full House returns from a monthlong Christmas break on Tuesday to begin the second session, but all sides expect election-year paralysis, meaning some of the usually routine bills may run into trouble.
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