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Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Is Less Really More in Congress?
Most of the popular/mainstream commentaries about Congress is that they don't their jobs - that they need to do more for the American people. We certainly have been highly critical of Congress for repeatedly not getting enough work done during the year by repeatedly failing to pass the most basic legislation that is required of them - the annual budget resolution and appropriations bills (see here, here, and here).
Which is why a post by Jim Harper over on Cato's blog caught my eye the other day. According to Harper, Congress introduced its 10,000th bill on July 30, right before they skipped town for the August recess. The 110th Congress is on pace to break the all-time record for number of bills introduced (10,537) set by the 109th Congress from 2005-2006.
The current Congress is on pace to easily beat the record 10,537 bills introduced in the 109th Congress. In the 109th (2005-2006), the 10,000th bill was introduced on September 18th, well after the August recess.
The number of bills introduced in each Congress has been rapidly increasing over the last twelve years. In the 104th Congress (1995-1996), there were 6,542 bills introduced. In the 105th (1997-1998), 7,529. The 106th (1999-2000), 107th (2001-2002), and 108th (2003-2004) saw bill introductions in the high 8,000s, and in the 109th (2005-2006), the number of bills first pierced through 10,000.
So, if I'm doing my math right, and I like to think I am, the number of bills introduced by Congress has increased 61 percent since the 104th Congress in 1995/1996. Yet there haven't been any additional members of Congress over that period - it's still 535 (plus 5 territorial representatives). So, one way of looking at it is that our legislators have increased their output from 12.11 bills per session to 19.51 bills per session. Talk about getting your money's worth for all you political contributors out there.
Yet the timeliness and quality of the bills Congress actually enacts has sharply decreased during that time. Congress hasn't enacted all of the annual appropriations bills on time since 1994 and as a country we're in more debt now than ever before, having added $4.23 trillion to the national debt in just the last 8 years. It seems this is a situation where less really is more.
Posted by Adam Hughes
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