I Heart the Do-Nothing Congress

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

Source: Blogs.E-Rockford.com

           Yesterday Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times penned Congress logs most futile legislative year on record in which he lambasts the 112^th Congress for not doing much of anything.   Looking at six specific yardsticks: time spent in session, number of bills passed, number of floor votes each chamber took, number of pages amassed in the Congressional Record, number of conference reports, and finally number of bills signed into law by the president Dinan surmised the 112^th to be a next to useless exercise in democracy.

            Considering the neck braking pace of legislative activity achieved under the Democratic 111^th Congress before the 2010 Republican landslide I’d say our country has been through enough.  Do we have such a short memory?  Moreover, isn’t there a missing story here?  Who still believes Congress passes most of our laws?

            The Washington Times may have done their due diligence with regard to the Congressional Record, however, they missed the glut of Government decrees found in the Federal Register.  This tedious tome of over 200 volumes is the official law of the land and records not only laws passed by Congress, but all executive orders and regulation passed by the horde of administrative agencies whom enjoy freedom from the deliberative process, public scrutiny and political logjam which impedes Congressional activity.  It is this administrative law, which comprises most of the law in our country not those passed by Congress.

            The Federal Register for example in a 12-month period, which ended in March of 2006 contained a breathtaking 77,537 pages including laws passed from over 319 independent and executive agencies!  Barack Obama after the passage of ObamaCare tentatively created 159 new bureaucratic bodies ostensibly to encourage efficiency and cost effectiveness in the new health care system.  While it most assuredly with fail in this endeavor it will be able to pass laws as most other agencies do with little impunity.

            The late libertarian economist William Niskanen, eulogized here, was famous for coming out and celebrating the “Case for Divided Government” and it is the 112^th Congress, which proves his point.  One-party governments of both political persuasions spend three times as fast, per his calculations.  We should be thankful for the legislative breather, considering the national anxiety caused by the 111^th Congresses who wants a Do-Too-Much Congress again?