104th Congress

The 112th Congress The Worst In Bill Passage Since World War II!

The 104th Congress of 1995-1996 under Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole had the worst performance of any Congress in fifty years, when it passed only 333 bills into law.

But now the 112th Congress has surpassed the 104th Congress in mediocrity, as under Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, ONLY 219 bills have been passed, and this coming after the 111th Congress (2009-2010) was the most productive since the 89th Congress (1965-1966) under President Lyndon B. Johnson!

The common thread of the 112th and the 104th Congresses is that in both cases, the House of Representatives was under Republican control, and with Republican control also in the US Senate for the 104th Congress. Split party control in the past two years between Democrats and Republicans turned out worse than the Republican control of both houses in 1995-1996!

Is Ezra Klein Correct That We Are Witnessing The Worst Congress Ever? YES, By A Landslide!

The 111th Congress (2009-2010) has been seen by many observers as the most productive Congress since the 89th Congress (1965-1966).

But now, the 112th Congress (2011-2012) has been declared by Ezra Klein, the brilliant commentator of the Washington Post and MSNBC, as the WORST Congress EVER!

Is Ezra Klein correct in his assessment? ABSOLUTELY!

The 112th Congress, as Klein says, has failed to deal with the problems facing the country, and has had as its major agenda the defeat of President Obama for a second term, and in the process, holding Americans hostage in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression!

Klein points out the following:

No Congress, with records back to the 80th Congress of 1947-1948, has produced such little passage of legislation, with the smallest being the 104th Congress (1995-1996), with 333 laws passed, and Democrat Bill Clinton being relected President in 1996 as a result.

Congress has only a ten percent approval rating, an all time low, with the Internal Revenue Service being at a popularity rate of 40 percent; Lawyers at 29 percent; President Richard Nixon during Watergate at 24 percent; Banks at 23 percent; the British Petroleum Oil Spill at 16 percent; and Paris Hilton at 15 percent, as examples!

The 112th Congress is the most polarized Congress since the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s, and we all know what came after–the GILDED AGE period of corporate dominance, not well looked upon by historians, and reminding us that we are now, in so many respects, in a new GILDED AGE, personified not only by the GOP control in the House of Representatives and in many state governments, but by the wealthiest Presidential nominee in American history, Mitt Romney, worth twice the assets of the last eight Presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush combined!

The Republican majority in the House and Republican opposition in the Senate set back economic recovery in 2011 and right up to this moment in 2012, by any measure! And this Congress caused the loss of America’s credit rating, and seem ready to do it again!

Voting unsuccessfully to repeal the Affordable Care Act THIRTY THREE times is an exercise in futility, and the House of Representatives has wasted approximately EIGHTY hours in doing nothing, two work weeks when they could have been working on job creation legislation!

This Congress has NOT passed any appropriations bills by the deadline of October 1 in 2011, and will not by October 1, 2012, as things stand!

The failure to provide for the future of our infrastructure–roads, bridges, subway systems, and airports– is a major problem for the long term.

Two Congressional experts, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, have written a book condemning the paralysis of the 112th Congress, saying it is the worst performance they have witnessed in 40 years of covering Congress!

In sum, the 112th Congress is an embarrassment, and there is no sign of any improvement in the future, particularly if the split Congress continues into the future!

Eric Cantor: “We won!” Nancy Pelosi In 2009: “We won!” So Nothing New With GOP Control Except Who They Represent! :(

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was cocky yesterday in a news conference, asserting: “We won!”

Two years ago, Nancy Pelosi said the same thing, and the Republican Party jumped all over her and her party!

But what has changed with GOP control? Nothing new, except who the GOP represents: powerful corporations, the top few percent of the people in a war on the masses of the middle and lower classes.

It looks likely that the 112th Congress will go down as the most right wing, reactionary Congress since the 1920s, as even the 80th Congress in 1947-1948 and the 83rd Congress in 1953-1954 were notable for some of the things they did.

As much as the Newt Gingrich led 104th (1995-1996) and 105th (1997-1998) Congresses were seen negatively in the Bill Clinton era, their right wing and conservative bent pale by comparison to what seems likely to occur over the next two years, and the big difference is that in the earlier Congresses mentioned above, the economy was not in a deep recession, with a slow recovery as we have in the present.

So the nation needs to brace for the horrors to come as the new Congress begins today! 🙁