"14 reasons why this is the worst Congress ever" Posted by Ezra Klein at WP

[applegrove]

14 reasons why this is the worst Congress ever

Posted by Ezra Klein on July 13, 2012 at WP

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/13/13-reasons-why-this-is-the-worst-congress-ever/

"SNIP.............................................

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:
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2. They’re hideously unpopular.

According to Gallup, the 112th Congress set a record for unpopularity in February, when only 10 percent of Americans said they approved of the job Congress was doing. The previous record was set in December of 2011, when only 11 percent approved of Congress. So this Congress is number one … in being hated by their constituents. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado made this memorable graph of all the things that are more popular than Congress:
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3. They’re incredibly polarized.

The best measure of congressional polarization — which is to say, the distance between the two parties — is the DW-Nominate system developed by political scientist Keith Poole. DW-Nominate works by measuring coalitions. It looks to see who votes together and how often. And it works. Its results line up with both common sense and alternative ways of measuring ideology, like the scorecard kept by the American Conservative Union.
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4. They’ve set back the recovery.

In 2011, congressional Republicans came closer than ever before to breaching the debt ceiling and setting off a global financial crisis. In the end, they pulled back moments before we toppled into the abyss. But by then, they had already done serious damage to the recovery.

..................................................SNIP"

[emulatorloo]

1. Excellent review. Needs to be on the Greatest Page.

Thanks for posting.

[myrna minx]

2. K&R n/t

[StrictlyRockers]

3. Great stuff here. Excellent post. Ezra nails it. n/t

[siligut]

4. They should be unpopular, it is good that people are paying attention

And we can hope for change this November.

[TomCADem]

5. Generally, The Media Completely Fails To Hold Republicans Accountable

By most measures, this is the worst Congress ever. The House Republicans waste their time engaging in symbolic partisan votes like the Eric Holder gun rights conspiracy vote and the attempt to repeal healthcare again. Yet, the media gives John Boehner a free pass such that he can gleefully blame the President for the slow recovery when he himself is directly responsible for the lack of action by the Federal Government. Worse, the actions of Republicans repeatedly threatened to plunge the world into financial crisis.

[Firebrand Gary]

6. K&R.....This has got to be my favorite post of the year thus far!

[bhikkhu]

7. Wait till they vote to repeal the ACA a few more times

That seems to be their all-purpose solution to every problem we face.

[libodem]

8. Singing

To the choir. Sing on, sista. I love it.

[Initech]

9. That's part of the republican's master plan - make Congress as unpopular as possible.

The next step - privatize everything.