US Congress On Pace To Be The Least Productive Legislature In 164 Years
by Everett Numbers via TheAntiMedia.org,
ZeroHedge.com
Jul 20, 2017
Without even enough Senate Republican support for a “clean repeal” of Obamacare, this Congress is on its way to historical levels of getting nothing done. So is the ‘Resistance’ winning? And will the divided GOP endanger President Donald Trump’s 2020 chances?
Another U.S. civil war may not be just around the corner, but then again, just imagine the status quo for another 10 years. Congress is on pace to pass the least number of bills in 164 years, David Faris, associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University, wrote Tuesday in The Week. As Washington, D.C. revels in permanent division and another “lesser of two evils” 2020 election cycle creeps into view, something’s got to give.
Immediately following the late Monday evening announcement that the Obamacare “repeal and replace” strategy would be split into two separate bills, many Republican voters expressed optimism that Congress may actually get something done. Or, rather, undone. But…
Nope! Despite Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) all being on the same page for a “clean repeal” and ready to hear bipartisan “replacement” proposals, there were at least three other GOP voices already shutting down the entire plot.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia all came out Tuesday against that proposal, with fellow Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas telling NPR that there were “five or six” total Republicans who opposed separating repeal and replace.
An inactive Congress certainly has its benefits, but a pendulum swings hardest from either extreme. As opposed to former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush signing a “jobs” bill and a tax decrease by this time in 2009 and 2001, respectively, Trump has signed mostly symbolic bills. The current GOP-led Congress has successfully snipped away some administrative regulations in 14 signed bills, but there are 238 House-passed bills the Senate has yet to take up, with just a fraction having any shot at advancing, according to Faris at The Week.
If it’s too much to draw parallels with the Civil War and today’s polarized politics, perhaps it could be more accurately stated that the U.S. is already in a slow-motion civil war. The Republicans’ control of Congress and the White House, which they haven’t had since 2006, could be lost in 2018 and 2020, notwithstanding a seemingly unfocused Democratic Party.
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