Most Gridlocked Congress In History Still Manages Double-Digit Growth In Federal Spending

Rob Port • January 17, 2012

According to the Washington Times, 2011 marked the most gridlocked Congress in the history of the country:

It’s official: Congress ended its least-productive year in modern history after passing 80 bills — fewer than during any other session since year-end records began being kept in 1947.

Furthermore, an analysis by The Washington Times of the scope of such activities as time spent in debate, number of conference reports produced and votes taken on the House and Senate floors found that Congress set a record for legislative futility by accomplishing less in 2011 than any other year in history.

Most of us in the limited government movement think of gridlock as a positive. The less the government does the better. But what’s interesting is that, despite this apparently historic level of gridlock, Congress still managed to introduce bills that would have increased spending by $1 trillion:

Despite endless talk of spending cuts and fiscal restraint in Washington over the past year, lawmakers continued to act as though the government doesn’t spend nearly enough.

They introduced 874 bills in the House and Senate that would have boosted annual federal spending by more than $1 trillion if they’d all been signed into law, according to an analysis done for IBD by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

In contrast, lawmakers offered up just 215 bills to cut spending last year that would have reduced federal outlays by about half a trillion had they all been signed into law.

Just to be clear, at a time when we’re running a budget deficit of over $1 trillion annually, Congress is still offering up roughly 4 spending bills for every one bill cutting spending.

Here’s a chart showing revenues and total federal outlays for 2008 – 2011:

So in an “unproductive” year of a gridlocked Congress in 2011 we still managed to increase total federal outlays by $362 billion, which is more than a 10% increase.

Relative to the previous year-over-year increase in federal spending (over 17% in 2009), I guess it’s slower growth in spending, but that even historic levels of gridlock is begetting double-digit increases in spending is troubling.

A big reason for it is that so much of our spending (entitlement spending, specifically) is on autopilot. The spending goes up every year even if Congress does nothing.

Tags: deficits, national debt

suitepotato

Since when is passing as many laws and they can per day the mark of a properly working congress???

Congress doesn’t just do things. It does them TO people. The less they do, the less they do TO people.

The founders’ idea of congress was not a machine for laws, rules, and controls without regard to having very good and substantial reasons for each and every one that not only pass rational review, but are in keeping with both letter AND spirit of the constitution (and Declaration of Independence as well really). It’s another sign of the now nearly inevitable collapse of the entire enterprise that people think congress is broken unless it is busy passing controls on every single thing we do and think (and of course, spending money that unborn generations to come will be suffering for).

We already have more laws than anyone charged with enforcing them can keep track of (leading automatically to selective enforcement, and thus, elimination of any moral or ethical authority because unequal application of the law is governance by fiat, something the founders explicitly tried to stave off by writing a constitution in the first place). We need more do we?

No. Congress is working almost fine. Now, we need to elect people who not only pass fewer pieces of legislation, but also stop writing spending legislation. That won’t happen until the people stop voting for whoever bribes them with enough of their own tax dollars, but what’s the chance of that ever happening in a nation where people with two 42 inch LED TVs and a brand new Prius in the driveway count themselves as poor by comparing themselves with Warren Buffet?
suitepotato

Since when is passing as many laws as they can per day the mark of a properly working congress???

Congress doesn’t just do things. It does them TO people. The less they do, the less they do TO people.

The founders’ idea of congress was not a machine for laws, rules, and controls without regard to having very good and substantial reasons for each and every one that not only pass rational review, but are in keeping with both letter AND spirit of the constitution (and Declaration of Independence as well really). It’s another sign of the now nearly inevitable collapse of the entire enterprise that people think congress is broken unless it is busy passing controls on every single thing we do and think (and of course, spending money that unborn generations to come will be suffering for).

We already have more laws than anyone charged with enforcing them can keep track of (leading automatically to selective enforcement, and thus, elimination of any moral or ethical authority because unequal application of the law is governance by fiat, something the founders explicitly tried to stave off by writing a constitution in the first place). We need more do we?

No. Congress is working almost fine. Now, we need to elect people who not only pass fewer pieces of legislation, but also stop writing spending legislation. That won’t happen until the people stop voting for whoever bribes them with enough of their own tax dollars, but what’s the chance of that ever happening in a nation where people with two 42 inch LED TVs and a brand new Prius in the driveway count themselves as poor by comparing themselves with Warren Buffet?
suitepotato

Disqus appears to have turned to crap again…
Anonymous

Passing crap bills is a measure of good???

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Most Gridlocked Congress In History Still Manages Double-Digit Growth In Federal Spending

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