"Our do-almost-nothing Congress" by Dana Milbank at the Washington Post

[applegrove]

Our do-almost-nothing Congress

By Dana Milbank, Wednesday, May 2, 8:35 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-unknown-but-important-man-among-celebrities/2012/05/01/gIQAtOu7uT_story.html?hpid=z2

"SNIP........................

Good work if you can get it — but the behavior is doing quite a job on the rest of us. On those infrequent occasions the House is in session, the Senate, also enamored of recess, often isn’t, which helps explain why the two chambers can’t agree on much of anything.

To call this 112th Congress a do-nothing Congress would be an insult — to the real Do-Nothing Congress of 1947-48. That Congress passed 908 laws. To date, this one has passed 106 public laws. Even if they triple that output in the rest of 2012 — not a terribly likely proposition — they will still be in last place going back at least 40 years.

Doing nothing would arguably be preferable to what the House is actually doing. Lawmakers have staged 195 roll-call votes so far this year, which sounds like a lot until you realize that boils down to only about 60 pieces of legislation, including post-office namings. Among the 60:

●The Mark Twain Commemorative Coin Act.

.................................SNIP"




This ties in to what Maddow said last night: That a polarized congress and inequality rise together.