What In the World are They Doing in Washington?
So far this year we’ve had 4,288 bills introduced in the Congress. That puts our congressmen and senators on track for a banner year in terms of number of bills introduced, and probably for fewest bills enacted too.
Congress operates in two-year terms. 2011 is the first year of the “112th Congress”. The table below shows the breakdown for the last 13 years.
| Congress | No Major Action | Some Action | Failed | Enacted |
| 106th (1999-2000) | 7460 | 922 | 28 | 558 (6%) |
| 107th (2001-2002) | 7750 | 841 | 5 | 350 (4%) |
| 108th (2003-2004) | 7045 | 932 | 13 | 476 (6%) |
| 109th (2005-2006) | 9141 | 930 | 22 | 465 (4%) |
| 110th (2007-2008) | 9218 | 1382 | 39 | 442 (4%) |
| 111th (2009-2010) | 9239 | 998 | 26 | 366 (3%) |
| 112th (so far) | 3956 | 305 | 7 | 20 (0.5%) |
With these statistics, I really have to ask "What in the world are they doing in Washington?" Our elected politicians, Democrats, Republicans, Tea Party, Indenpendents need to stop throwing BRIC-A-BRAC at each other and start working on the issues that are important to their consituents.
Reference:
http://www.govtrack.us/blog/2011/08/04/kill-bill-how-many-bills-are-there-how-many-are-enacted/
