Worst Ever

Here's a list of reasons the current Congress might be the worst ever. Teabaggers might consider #1 a good thing; and, given the stupidity of so many congressfolk nowadays, they may have a point. But it's not as if there aren't real problems that need real solutions...

This week, the House of Representatives voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. On its own, such a vote would be unremarkable. Republicans control the House, they oppose President Obama’s health reform law, and so they voted to get rid of it.

But here’s the punchline: This was the 33^rd time they voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Holding that vote once makes sense. Republicans had promised that much during the 2010 campaign. But 33 times? If doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result makes you insane, what does doing the same thing 33 times and expecting a different result make you?

Well, it makes you the 112^th Congress.

Hating on Congress is a beloved American tradition. Hence Mark Twain’s old joke, “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” But the 112^th Congress is no ordinary congress. It’s a very bad, no good, terrible Congress. It is, in fact, one of the very worst congresses we have ever had. Here, I’ll prove it:

1. They’re not passing laws.

Let’s start with the simplest measure of congressional productivity: the number of public bills passed into law per Congress. The best data on this comes from the annual “resume of congressional activity,” which goes back to the 80th Congress — the same Congress President Harry Truman dubbed the “do-nothing Congress.” But they did a lot more than this Congress...

He goes on, with lots of charts and graphs. Not that it's unexpected to anyone paying even a moment's attention; but it's persuasive.

And here's the thing: what does it take to have elected the worst congress ever? Obvious: the worst electorate ever. Thanks, Fox "news." Thanks RWS™. Thanks science-deniers and education destroyers, astro-turfed and terminally gullible teabaggers. Guess we got what someone else paid for.