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In the first seven months of 2012, the political class in Washington had managed to pass and enact a meager 54 pieces of legislation. At that time, it was viewed as the least productive set of Federal politicians in the history of the United States. A pathetic performance from so-called leaders, people who on average earn more than three times the annual income of the average American family. But, just when you think our politicians cannot get any worse, they manage to under perform even more. According to an article in a recent issue of Business Week magazine, in the first seven months of 2013, Washington politicians have managed to enact a meager 18 pieces of legislation. Beyond pathetic. Now, one should never support passing legislation for the sake of passing legislation. Far more often than not, when politicians pass laws to resolve a problem they end up making the problem worse or waste far more taxpayer wealth. But if minimal legislation enactment resolves major issues, go for it. And Lord knows we are suffering through a ton of weighty problems in this country: 1.Unemployment is chronic and has set records for being above 7% for the longest period in our history. 2.Our national debt is any almost incomprehensible $17 TRILLION, a per American debt load of well over $50,000 per person. 3.Our public schools have been under educating our kids for decades relative to kids around the world in countries who spend far less than we do to educate our kids. 4.We have been fighting a losing war on drugs for decades which has created violent international drug cartels without fixing the original problem with drug addiction. 5.Our borders leak and we have over 10 million illegal immigrants hiding in this country. 6.Our health care costs are ever escalating and Obama Care is making the situation worse every day. 7.Decades after the oil shocks of the 1970s, we still do not have a coherent national energy policy and strategy. If Congress and Obama enacted only seven pieces of legislation but those seven pieces resolved these seven problems, we would all be ecstatic. But, passing only 18 pieces of legislation in seven months is really pathetic. And what is beyond pathetic, as documented in Business Week, is what these 18 pieces of legislation were actually for. Trust me when I tell you that none of the 18 were worth the pay rate of Obama and the 535 members of Congress: 1) Four of the pieces of legislation were not new laws at all, they only renewed existing laws: •Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 •Animal Drug and Animal Generic Drug User Fee Reauthorization Act of 2013. •Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013. •Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, needed to avoid a government shutdown. 2) Two of the eighteen pieces of legislation were not renewals of existing laws but were simply small tweaks to existing laws: •H.R. 475 amended the IRS code, adding a $.75 excise tax on some flu vaccines. •S.716 modified the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 3) One of the eighteen pieces of legislation undid an existing law: •The Reducing Flight Delay Act of 2013. 4) That leaves 11 remaining, underwhelming pieces of legislation: •NO Budget NO Pay Act of 2013 which stopped salary payments to Congressional members if their respective houses of Congress did not produce a government budget proposal on time. Doesn’t stipulate that the budget is good or has been passed, just makes sure that each house has a budget document on time, no matter how lame it is. •The District Of Columbia Chief Financial Officer Vacancy Act which allowed the acting chief financial officer to act as the DC chief financial officer until the job is officially filled. •The Stolen Valor Act of 2012 which made lying about your military service for financial gain a crime. •The Freedom Fish Act which allowed Tennessee and Kentucky fishermen to fish in areas that the Army Corp Of Engineers wanted to ban fishing from. •H.R. 360 which awarded a Congressional Gold Medal to 1963 Sixteenth Baptist Church bombing victims. •H.R. 324 awarded the same medal to a World War II American/Canadian commando unit. •The Disaster Relief Appropriations Act sent $60 billion to Hurricane Sandy victims, possibly the only real piece of legislation passed in the past seven months. •H.R. 1151 ordered the Secretary of State to endorse Taiwan’s attendance at an international aviations regulations meeting. You cannot make up this nonsense. •H.R. 1071 let’s the U.S. Mint print coins for baseball’s 75th anniversary of its Hall of Fame opening. •H.R. 2383 renamed a bridge in the St. Louis area for recently passed away baseball legend Stan Musial. Again, you could not make up such an inane, underwhelming list of legislative accomplishments if you tried. Not a single one of these enacted bills will have any impact on the seven major issues we listed above, issues that touch the lives of every single American in one way or another. These eighteen pieces of legislation, giving out medals, renaming a bridge, opening up fishing grounds, etc. should have been handled in the first hour of the first day of their first meeting back in January. It should not have taken seven months to come up with this garbage. How much did this cost the American taxpayer? If you assume the average Congressional member makes about $170,000 a year and throw in the President’s salary, on a seven month prorated basis, just the salary cost to come up with these 18 pieces of legislation is well over $50 million. We would have been better off as a nation if we had saved the $50 million and did not have to deal with these 18 pieces of legislation. But the cost is far higher than $50 million. This estimate is just for salaries. It does not include the loaded benefits of Washington politicians and does not include the salary and benefits of the thousands of Congressional and Presidential staff members who worked to produce this lame list of legislative “accomplishments.” One could venture a guess that the American taxpayer paid over a billion dollars for this legislative non-accomplishment. But the far greater cost is that we have allowed the Washington political class to waste and wallow away another seven months of inaction and we are no closer to resolving any of the major issues facing the nation. Seven months have gone by and unemployment is still chronic, our debt is still going up, our kids are still getting under educated, etc. That is the true loss and true embarrassment of this, the lamest set of Washington politicians in the history of our nation. This behavior and under accomplishment in the first seven months of 2013 is a prime example of why we need term limits for all Washingotn politicians, one and done. Because really, after a paltry passage of eighteen bills in seven months, bills that are next to useless when running the affairs of the nation, how much worse could it get?
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term limits, congress, politicians, stan musial, hurricane sandy,
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