To say that John Boehner is the worst Speaker of the House in the history of the United States and that the 113th House is the most ineffective and impotent in our history would be like saying George Bush was our worst president…the argument sure can be made that’s the case.

Here’s a graph showing that to date, this Congress has passed fewer laws than any Congress since 1947:

Congress Bills Passed till 2013

See that little nub above 2013? That represents the miniscule 22 bills that have become law under John Boehner’s Flying Circus. Boehner announced last week that his House shouldn’t be judged on how many laws it passes but how many it repeals. We don’t need a graph for the amount of laws they repealed, it’s zero. So even using his own yardstick, Boehner and his House majority are absolute failures and embarrassments to the nation.

A few fun facts about the 22 bills they passed:

  • Not a single one of these 22 is a jobs bill.
  • Two of these bills, virtually 10% of all of them, were authored by Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz to benefit a Utah energy company.
  • One was to reverse the effects of the sequester only on airport personnel so Congresspeople didn’t have to wait in lines to fly home.

Now let’s group these 22 bills:

LAWS PASSED TO BENEFIT THEMSELVES OR PANDER TO THEIR CONSTITUENTS:

1.  H.R. 1765: Reducing Flight Delays Act of 2013 – Reps didn’t have to wait at airports like other Americans due to the sequester.

2. H.R. 254: Bonneville Unit Clean Hydropower Facilitation Act– Benefiting energy corp contributor to UT Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s campaigns.

3. H.R. 251: South Utah Valley Electric Conveyance Act – See #2

4. H.R. 2289: To rename section 219(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as the Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA – a political going-away gift to Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson

5. S. 982: Freedom to Fish Act – Pandering to Southerners who fish

6. H.R. 325: No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013 – Pandering to public displeasure with Congress and political attack on Senate Dems.

LAWS THAT ADDRESS PROBLEMS THAT AREN’T FREQUENT OR SEVERE

7. H.R. 258: Stolen Valor Act of 2013

8. H.R. 1151: To direct the Secretary of State to develop a strategy to obtain observer status for Taiwan at the triennial International Civil Aviation Organization Assembly, and for other purposes.

9. H.R. 1246: District of Columbia Chief Financial Officer Vacancy Act

LAWS THAT HARM THE PUBLIC

10. H.R. 475: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to include vaccines against seasonal influenza within the definition of taxable vaccines.

11. S. 622: Animal Drug and Animal Generic Drug User Fee Reauthorization Act of 2013
(These laws limit the public’s ability to sue drug manufacturers).

COMMEMORATIVE LAWS

12. H.R. 324: To grant the Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to the First Special Service Force, in recognition of its superior service during World War II.

13. H.R. 588: Vietnam Veterans Donor Acknowledgment Act of 2013

14. H.R. 360: To award posthumously a Congressional Gold Medal to Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley to commemorate the lives they lost 50 years ago in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where these 4 little Black girls’ ultimate sacrifice served as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement.

15. H.R. 2383: To designate the new Interstate Route 70 bridge over the Mississippi River connecting St. Louis, Missouri, and southwestern Illinois as the “Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge”.

16. H.R. 1071: To specify the size of the precious-metal blanks that will be used in the production of the National Baseball Hall of Fame commemorative coins.

LAWS TO PAY FOR HURRICANE SANDY EMERGENCY AID

17. H.R. 41: Hurricane Sandy relief bill

18. H.R. 152: Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013

LAWS NEEDED TO BE PASSED EVERY YEAR FOR THE US TO FUNCTION

19. H.R. 933: Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 – Paying the bills we owe…wow…big accomplishment.

LAWS THAT HELP OR PROTECT AMERICANS AND/OR THEIR NATION

20. H.R. 307: Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013

21. S. 716: A bill to modify the requirements under the STOCK Act regarding online access to certain financial disclosure statements and related forms.

22. S. 47: Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013

 

We still have some big bills left to deal with on the budget, debt ceiling and immigration so there will be at least a few more laws passed but it would be going with the odds to bet on this Republican House and John Boehner as Speaker of the House, going down in history as the biggest failures our democracy has seen.

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funksands
Member

Ad, the Freedom to Fish Act is pretty funny. This prohibits the Corp of Engineers from declaring the waters directly below a dam “hazardous” and prohibiting fishing as a result.

So basically they passed a law allowing people to fish in hazardous waters. Strike a blow for freedom!

Nirek
Member

Ad, another GRAND SLAM! You make so many good points. I don’t know where to start. You’re right.
I still wish I could write as well as you do. You make my points better than I make them.
Enough said.

Kalima
Admin

Ok, I have a solution. Someone should propose/write a bill where all members of Congress will have to take a substantial cut in salary, say by half, until they do the people’s work. The work that they were elected and expected to do by taxpayers who pay their wages. If you employ someone who is not doing their job, you either demote them or in most cases, fire them. That should apply to Congress too. Hit them where it hurts the most, in their wallets and give them a small taste of what the rest of America is going through with cuts to benefits and the Sequester. Hold them hostage for a change. Every time they pass a bill that is good for America, they get a small raise. It won’t pass of course, but it would at least cause some embarrassment to most members.

I’ve said it here often, what the Repubs/TP have been doing for the last 5 years in trying to obstruct the president, is a form of treason because they are working against the country and against what the majority of the American people want. How any media or group can openly support this brand of political vandalism and claim that they love America is beyond me. If eyes don’t open to the real motives of this bunch of losers soon, the damage they are causing and have already inflicted on your nation will take decades to put right again. Maybe all you have is your vote, so in 2014 and 2016, make it count, and kick this human trash out on their mean, bony behinds.

Boehner is a dull blade in a drawer full of dull blades, he will pay dearly for his verbal mistakes soon enough.

Eye opening AdLib, and hits close to home because of what has been allowed to happen in the U.K. under the ruthless Tories. I might not live there anymore, but family and friends still do, and as of this year I am a home owner there and pay taxes for the privilege.

jjgravitas
Member
jjgravitas

I agree, but I would go even further. Not only should Congress not be paid any money, but neither should we pay for their support staff, the security force or anything else. As t stands, Congress is the only part of our government that isn’t suffering financially.

glenn
Member

Now, now AdLib. Tsk, tsk, and shame on you (I say with tongue in cheek).

Don’t you know that r/tp’s believe in “hope and change”? Or as the Wasilla Wordsmith says, “that hopey, changey thingy.”

The r/tp’s HOPE that the American people:

don’t notice their lies and hypocrisy.

don’t notice that they haven’t done one thing about jobs.

care more about whether you have a “D” or an “R” by your name, rather than what’s good for the American people.

don’t see the r/tp’s war on women’s rights.

don’t see their war on civil rights, like the right to vote, or a teenager’s right to walk down a street in his father’s neighborhood without getting shot to death.

The r/tp’s want to CHANGE the American government:

by declaring that Congress was established to repeal laws rather than to pass laws,

so that even if the opposition party tries to pass laws in the Senate, those laws must always be passed with a super majority, rather than a simple majority. Even if that opposition party won the popular vote in the House (yet is still the minority), and the opposition party is the majority party in the Senate, and holds the White House,

so that the way to “govern” is to hold the debt ceiling and the U.S. credit rating hostage,

or, so that the way to “govern” is to threaten to shut down the government,

or, so that the way to “govern” is to just say “no”, even if what you are saying “no” to was a republican idea to begin with.

So AdLib, I just cannot believe how critical you are of these poor r/tp’s who are just going along with “hope and change”. (Can you see the bulge in my cheek?)

KillgoreTrout
Member

Thanks Ad for the great info. Isn’t it appalling? Boehners remarks verge upon what I will call soft treason. It’s not outright, hard core treason, like helping a foreign nation against our own, but these actions by congress, or non actions I should say, are definitely harmful to our nation’s progress. I think it is absolutely unAmerican for any congress to work against the executive branch.

The political ideology on the right is downright harmful to the American people, not to mention a huge waste of our tax dollars in paying these cement heads their salaries and benefits.

Great article Ad. It really shows the abominable behavior of this congress that is now in power.

choicelady
Member

Wow, AdLib, this is mind boggling. Not being a congressional scholar at all, I still cannot remember a time in our nation’s history when so little was accomplished by Congress. Boehner’s ingenuous disclaimer that their job is NOT to pass legislation but to undo it simply is unprecedented as far as I can tell.

I wonder how passing a bill making flu vaccinations a taxable entity squares with existing ACA requirements to make preventive care free? Maybe this is what you have to do if you’re privately insured or not insured at all? And where is the logic to this – when flu shots are an observable good in keeping the fragile out of the ER? For an anti-tax group of nut jobs, this is definitely contradictory in nature.

I would wonder how they think this will “play in Peoria” if I did not know that the message for the Bagger home teams will be “Death Panels and High Cost Medical Care are Comin’ fer Ya!” I keep wanting to say to citizen Baggers – look out for that man behind the curtain. He is NOT the Great and Powerful Oz but merely Mr. Orange who in this story is the one with the Winged Monkeys: Congress.

Another urban myth got exploded today:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/07/29/what-affordable-care-act-really-means-job-growth?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=073013-text1&utm_campaign=healthcare

Affordable Care is NOT costing jobs at all, not shortening hours for most employees, not causing businesses to collapse. But this won’t be what Congress will say – at least not the Bagger Brand.

Elected reps who are lazier than their VP choice in 2008, spending two days a week doing NOTHING then going home are the scourge of society, the “ripoff takers” with NO self perception or honor. If this is the best they can do, then let’s dock their pay for poor performance? That’s what would happen to them in the private sector – their own, much-vaunted standard of good.

I hope every single person who has needed assistance from the government and who believes in democracy will help others GET voter ID then take people to the polls and vote themselves. We have to change the House and keep the Senate in the hands of those who really believe in the nation, not just their own special privilege. It’s important! VOTE!!!