Looks like the GOP's accusations of a "do-nothing Senate" have truth to them. A new report from the Secretary of the Senate reveals that the upper chamber has been the least productive it's been since Bill Clinton first ran for president. Harry Reid and friends haven't just failed to pass a budget. It looks like they've failed to pass almost anything.
In her latest report, Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson revealed a slew of data that put the first session of the 112th Senate at the bottom of Senates since 1992 in legislative productivity, an especially damning finding considering that it wasn’t an election year when congressional action is usually lower.
For example, while the Democratically-controlled Senate was in session for 170 days, it spent an average of just 6.5 hours in session on those days, the second lowest since 1992. Only 2008 logged a lower average of 5.4 hours a day, and that’s when action was put off because several senators were running for president, among them Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain.
On the passage of public laws, arguably its most important job, the Senate notched just 90, the second lowest in 20 years, and it passed a total of 402 measures, also the second lowest. And as the president has been complaining about, the chamber confirmed a 20-year low of 19,815 judicial and other nominations.
The Democrats, of course, control the Senate, and yet it's the "Republican-controlled Congress" that President Obama likes to saddle with blame for legislative gridlock. Right.
Meanwhile, they work they do take on tends toward demagoguery and gimmickry. Take today, for example. The Senate will vote on the president's beloved "Buffett Rule," the pointless tax measure that would do absolutely nothing to solve the crisis of our ever-mounting debt. What it will do is make the tax system "look fairer."
Glad to see the Senate is so focused on crafting real solutions to the problems our nation faces!
On second though, perhaps we're better off when they don't work...
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