There are signs on construction sites all over New York City that (futilely) warn “Post No Bills”. I’ve always thought those signs belong in Congress instead.
A lot of people complain that Congress doesn’t do anything. All in all, that’s an improvement.
The 118th Congress is on track to be one of the most unproductive in modern history, with just a couple dozen laws on the books at the close of 2023, according to data from data analytics firm Quorum.
Just 20 bills have been passed by both chambers and signed into law this year, with another four currently awaiting President Biden’s signature, according to the Quorum data.
That’s far below even historically unproductive first years: The 104th, 112th and 113th Congresses, in which Republicans controlled one or both chambers with Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in the White House, passed between 70 and 73 laws.
When you dig into the laws passed by this Congress, the picture becomes even more bleak.
The vast majority were uncontroversial bills that passed either by unanimous consent or with minimal opposition, including multiple measures to rename Veterans Affairs clinics and another to mint a coin commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Marine Corps.
Bleak for big government liberal technocrats, sunny and optimistic for conservatives with anti-government tendencies.
Sure, it would be nice if a solidly conservative House and Senate teamed up with a conservative White House to defund higher education, deport George Soros and Pierre Omidyar, and build a border wall that you could see from space. I’m not terribly optimistic about it and with a Democrat Senate and White House, fewer bills are better than many.
Gridlock is preferable to the House being rolled.
The dark side here is that the rolling happened anyway. Massive packages like the NDAA get passed. 3,000-page monstrosities just roll everything inside. And without actual bills, the federal bureaucracy is even freer to roam wild than usual.
Still, I can’t be too unhappy that very little is being accomplished legislatively. Mint that coin and rename that clinic. It could be worse. Much worse.