hacker

The article in The Washington Post was at the very least possibly (if not actually "likely" because it is of course The Washington Post) telling us a half-truth by giving us quite literally the LAWS passed by Congress AND approved by the President...as opposed to giving us the TOTAL number of bills, vetoed AND approved, together, that were passed by those Congresses

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Un ... ial_vetoes

Barack obama has only used a veto twice according to Wikipedia. (its sources listed)
So, Hacker, if you are refuting the evidence produced because somehow the lack of successful legislation in Congress is due to Presidential obstruction ...
Not so.
So, The Post was telling pretty much the whole truth.

Hacker, you're just about the only person I've run into in readng anywhere who thinks this Congress is even moderatly functioning.... Why?

Firstly, is there a way to INCREASE the size of the text wherein you write your messages? I am getting a little tired of staring a 2-point size text!

Secondly, judging by Danivon's numbers, the Washington Post has lived up to its sobriquet which I gave it ("a squalid little rag") by telling a massively-misleading half-truth bordering on a lie. Although I think I owe Ricky a beer---but not a full pint, yet; not even a half-pint---a shot glass so far. To wit:

Danivon:

As I understand it, Congress passed 561 bills in the 112th Congress. This was a record low.

Of these, 284 were promulgated (given Presidential assent and issued) as Acts - what you are calling 'laws'.

Who says it's a record low? the Post? Wikipedia? What are the exact figures for the 111th and earlier Congresses?

and Ricky:

Barack obama has only used a veto twice according to Wikipedia. (its sources listed)

Do the math: the 112th Congress passed 561 bills. Of those bills, 284 became law (the President signed them). 561 - 284 = 277 which were vetoed. A lot more than two. Is it possible that Wikipedia is mistaken? Or perhaps the author of that article in Wikipedia misread something or mistook something? It would seem that way!

So, The Post was telling pretty much the whole truth.

No, they were not. They were presenting a half-truth knowing that many of their readers would not read between the lines like I did; and would probably fail to wonder if the author of the piece himself or herself knew the difference between a "bill" and a "law". The bar chart showed about 100 "laws" passed by Congress. According to Danivon, who I hope is using more than Wikipedia for these numbers, there were actually 284 laws passed by Congress, not 100-ish (but 561 total bills: the Post makes a tidy little empire on their readers' lack of curiosity). Crappy-looking bar chart, too: I'm guessing the purple bar under the 112th Congress is at about 100-ish laws, but they weren't good enough to state the actual number in the section of that article having to do with the number laws passed. Yet another article in the Washington Post I would not have used if I were trying to present your argument.

BTW, Ricky wrote:

Hacker, you're just about the only person I've run into in readng anywhere who thinks this Congress is even moderatly functioning.... Why?

BTW Ricky I will answer your question in detail a little later; I had promised already to articulate my, um, thing, about majority rule, and the two are intertwined.

I suspect you'll find that a Bill is defined as one that passed either house. Somebody will no doubt look it up for us though.

But look, to me the obvious point is the one I made way back at the beginning of this thread. Obama is going to finish his 2nd term and when he looks back on his record he won't see a single piece of meaningful legislation that he really wanted to achieve having been passed for the last 6 years of his administration. Congress can pass as many laws renaming bus depots as it likes, record numbers for all I care, but that wouldn't mean that the government is effective.

JimHackerMP wrote:

As I understand it, Congress passed 561 bills in the 112th Congress. This was a record low.

Of these, 284 were promulgated (given Presidential assent and issued) as Acts - what you are calling 'laws'.

Who says it's a record low? the Post? Wikipedia? What are the exact figures for the 111th and earlier Congresses?

I posted a link to the report which gathered the data. Here is again. http://www.brookings.edu/research/repor ... n-ornstein - look at Chapter 6. It has the figures for congresses 82-112

Sassenach wrote:I suspect you'll find that a Bill is defined as one that passed either house. Somebody will no doubt look it up for us though.

A Bill goes to either house - https://beta.congress.gov/legislative-process

To pass a law, most Bills need to be passed by both houses, so the number of Bills being about double the number of passed Acts makes sense. I thought Hacker knew the difference. I guess not.

Oh, and Hacker, the number of passed laws in the Klein article showing in the graph is based on a per-session rate, as of July 2012 (18 months into the 112th Congress).

A Congress has 2 sessions. By the date of the article, 13 July 2012, the 112th Congress had passed 144 Acts, in one session and a half. That is an average rate of under 100 per session, which tallies with the graph.

The number of Acts passed in the last six months of the 122th Congress was much higher (about 80 in the last month of the Congress).

But even so it ended up passing fewer Acts (or, if you insist - 'Laws') than any Congress since WWII. The source for that assertion is (again) here http://www.brookings.edu/research/repor ... n-ornstein

But look, to me the obvious point is the one I made way back at the beginning of this thread. Obama is going to finish his 2nd term and when he looks back on his record he won't see a single piece of meaningful legislation that he really wanted to achieve having been passed for the last 6 years of his administration. Congress can pass as many laws renaming bus depots as it likes, record numbers for all I care, but that wouldn't mean that the government is effective.

Indeed.

At this point in time (again about 3/4 through the 113th Congress), fewer Acts have been passed than by the same point in the 112th - so far the latest is 113-127 and four treaties have been ratified.

To pass a law, most Bills need to be passed by both houses, so the number of Bills being about double the number of passed Acts makes sense. I thought Hacker knew the difference. I guess not.

I'm sorry what are you saying I have missed?

An "Act of Congress" is the same as a Law---in other words not just a bill, but one that was signed (approved) by the president.

But look, to me the obvious point is the one I made way back at the beginning of this thread. Obama is going to finish his 2nd term and when he looks back on his record he won't see a single piece of meaningful legislation that he really wanted to achieve having been passed for the last 6 years of his administration. Congress can pass as many laws renaming bus depots as it likes, record numbers for all I care, but that wouldn't mean that the government is effective.

Good point. But what is ineffective is the president's leadership style. He is not at all compromising. He could have broken congressional deadlock, or deadlock between himself and the congress in general, by being more compromising, or at least less inclined to want to have it his way all the time. I have heard Republicans talk about how much better a style of leadership Bill Clinton had. [You know things are pretty serious when Republicans are praising Bill Clinton.] This does not mean that the members of Congress, of either house or either party, are blameless. But the most powerful single player in the game has made no noticeable contribution to resolving the situation. When you lament of lasting legislation the president wanted to achieve, all I can say is that he always wants to achieve it his way, or else.

I already agreed, in the very first post of this entire thread, that the government does not work the way it was intended to. That there has been deviation to some degree from the original design. That there were a few serious flaws in it too. However, that still goes a long way from running around the barnyard shouting that the sky is falling and we're headed for a military junta or total internal collapse. Actually, some of the things that have been said about "strong government" quite frankly scare me, I have to admit. If governments are designed for men, and not angels (as Hamilton or Madison put it) then there is going to be flaws in it. To me however, no matter what may cause us to utter the words "Congress" or "White House" with expressions of contempt and dismay, we are a long way from the Weimar Republic. Nobody has burned down the Capitol Building yet.

But thank you for showing me the Brookings Institute webpage. That actually has quite a bit of interesting data (though I have barely been able to scratch the surface in a short time).

I was curious about something. Where have you all three (it seems that there are four of us principally participating in this thread) learned most of American government?

Has anyone read into any of The Federalist Papers? I stopped reading the Mesquita/Smith book on dictators, and started to read a few of those instead. They are actually pretty enlightening into the possibilities of the early American republic. After all, I was speaking also of how it evolved from its original intent (though I made the mistake of using the word corrupted, instead.

The Federalist papers will tell you why Madison, Jay and Hamiltion thought a strong republic would offer better government than the confederation that was in place...
But it won't explain why or how the dysfunction in Washington exists today. (Despite your declarations it ain't so, )
They couldn't have imagined the primaruy system, the growth of the republic (to 50 states), the growth of modern corporate structures, modern communications or the importance and influence of money in the political apparatus....
The most important of the papers many consider to be No. 10. It addresses the question of how to guard against "factions", or groups of citizens, with interests contrary to the rights of others or the interests of the whole community. And yet the advent of primaries, and coroporate money has ensured that minority interests with enough money can work against the interests of the whole community....

hacker

Where have you all three (it seems that there are four of us principally participating in this thread) learned most of American government?

The Daily Show.

I'm sorry what are you saying I have missed?

You claimed that Obama has used his veto about 300 times in the last Congressional session and the evidence you based this on was a misunderstanding of the fact that a 'Bill' in this context is legislation that has passed one of the houses of Congress, ignoring the fact that the same Bill has to pass both houses before it goes to the President.

Or a different pair of Bills that get through reconciliation to become a composite.

Is there data on which house of congress has produced more?

Good point. But what is ineffective is the president's leadership style. He is not at all compromising. He could have broken congressional deadlock, or deadlock between himself and the congress in general, by being more compromising, or at least less inclined to want to have it his way all the time. I have heard Republicans talk about how much better a style of leadership Bill Clinton had. [You know things are pretty serious when Republicans are praising Bill Clinton.] This does not mean that the members of Congress, of either house or either party, are blameless. But the most powerful single player in the game has made no noticeable contribution to resolving the situation. When you lament of lasting legislation the president wanted to achieve, all I can say is that he always wants to achieve it his way, or else.

I don't doubt that Obama has been a fairly ineffectual President, and that he shares a large measure of the blame for the current gridlock, but the above is simply Republican propaganda regurgitated. It's quite clear that any Democrat in the White House would have struggled to achieve anything in the face of Republican candidates who are increasingly elected to Congress on an explicitly no compromise ticket. This is where 200 years of gerrymandering have brought you to, it's only a surprise that your government has functioned so comparatively well for so long.

In most places, when a party is voted into power they can usually expect to be able to pass their key legislation. It shouldn't always be necessary for the government to have to cut deals on every single thing they try to pass with opponents who are viscerally opposed to everything they're trying to achieve and who were elected with an explicit promise to compromise nothing. In an ideal world this concept of 'checks and balances' sounds marvellous. Who doesn't love the idea of controlling the over-mighty executive ? In the real world checks and balances are important, but to a point. It's also important for the government of the day to be able to govern effectively. That's not really possible at the moment. The sort of compromises that eventually result just mean that the resulting legislation is an incoherent mess, you need only look at Obamacare for evidence of this process. In other countries, the passing of a budget is a routine event 99% of the time and very occasionally an enormous event which brings down the government and leads to fresh elections. What it isn't is an annual showdown where two hostile camps play chicken with the world economy and millions of peoples jobs.

I don't doubt that Obama has been a fairly ineffectual President, and that he shares a large measure of the blame for the current gridlock, but the above is simply Republican propaganda regurgitated

Sass., I do not mean to sound like I"m mocking you, because I am not, but you just cheered me up immensely. When I read that I am merely "regurgitating Republican propaganda", OMG, I nearly shat myself I laughed so hard. You have my thanks.

Sorry, perhaps I didn't mention that I was gay, right? And that the Republican Party, in general, hasn't been quite nice to us all the time. The idea of me, of all people, as a mouthpiece to GOP propaganda is the most absurd reply you could have possibly made. I was in Westminster, the county seat, this afternoon and meant to visit the Board of Elections, but it was after closing time, so I'll just mail the thing in. I have figured that, where the GOP primaries are in this county, screw it. I'm not going to defect to the Dark Side of the Force (because as far as I am concerned, in many ways, there is no entirely superior party right now; I said something to that effect already. I am going to change my affiliation from Republican to Unaffiliated (Independent).

Have you considered another possibility guys? This is another period of "re-alignment"? We have had a bunch in the past. And things do tend to polarize for a while when it happens.

Well, gerrymandering has been with us for quite a while--in fact it dates back to the drawing of rather Rorschach-like congressional districts in Massachusetts by Gov. Elbridge Gerry so his Federalist (or maybe he was a Jefferson Republican, I don't remember exactly) would win the elections. But they could not be done with the same effectiveness as they can today: and you know I'm talking about computers. Until the last few decades, the complex mathematical model of socioeconomic conditions and where everyone lives, how they normally vote and what they ate for breakfast has not been as astoundingly efficient and effective (for the mapmakers, not for the citizens). I already agreed with you on that point.

This is where 200 years of gerrymandering have brought you to, it's only a surprise that your government has functioned so comparatively well for so long.

Another absurd statement. Actually for a while, I think, some of the congressmen were elected via a statewide, "general ticket" instead of from congressional districts. I do not remember which states still did it but you might be able to check, God knows where, but I do remember seeing that on the internet a great while ago (and I do not feel like looking it up right now).

It's quite clear that any Democrat in the White House would have struggled to achieve anything in the face of Republican candidates who are increasingly elected to Congress on an explicitly no compromise ticket.

And it is quite clear that any Republican elected to the White House will end up strugglign to achieve anything in the face of Democratic candidates who are increasingly elected to Congress on an explicitly no compromise ticket. You cannot accuse "the system" of being so polarized, and only blame one side.

Everyone wants to think that (s)he is the only smart one in the room, capable of seeing through the bullshit everyone else is eating up like it's caviar (a disgusting dish in my opinion). But when I start to feel that way I do try to caution myself to not get too sure of everything I believe. We can all be wrong, no matter what our party affiliation (or lack thereof). However, I must say that when I hear "certain words" I start to get skeptical of the people uttering them. "Democrat good/Republican bad" is just as trying for my ears as the converse. I tried telling this to some of my friends on both sides of the equation and they usually get mad at me, because they seem to think they can have their cake and eat it, too. I'm hearing different words sung to the exact same tune.

I do remember that during the whole budget crisis the White House spokesmen, as well as the President, were lying. They said that the United States would default on all its bonds by a certain date if the GOP "didn't get on board". A couple of days later, an S&P or some bond-rating firm's spokesman, stated on TV that that was untrue. That was the exact utterances of the two men, not secondhand information from any particular congressman or senator. White House spokesmen said the same thing about Social Security and disability payments would be frozen by a certain date. My brother got his SSDI and my parents their Social Security (the old age pension part) checks on time. It is clear that the White House was not above tossing around a little propaganda of its own. Fair enough?

In other countries, the passing of a budget is a routine event 99% of the time and very occasionally an enormous event which brings down the government and leads to fresh elections. What it isn't is an annual showdown where two hostile camps play chicken with the world economy and millions of peoples jobs.

I do not care how "optimistic" you think I sound, but that can be resolved. It's a hole in the constitution, they assumed that the Congress would be the purse of the Community, the executive, normally the "sword" of the community (forget whether that one was Hamilton or Madison). They were not prophets with crystal balls that could magically divine all possible problems with the constitution in the future. No constitution is without its flaws. I agree with you that the game of chicken is INEXCUSABLE to do to the American People. I have agreed with that already. However, no constitution can work if the people elected with an oath to protect and defend it trample on it, or don't fix it. That goes in any country. Americans are pretty damned sick of it at this point. It was not until the 1990s that the budget had this problem especially when the House and Senate were from different parties.

Besides the Daily Show, which is mostly a satire and definitely Left-leaning, where else do Canadians, Britons, etc, get their information about the United States? Like I said guys, good news doesn't sell newspapers. For all we know there could be a crapload of stuff the House and Senate (and even the President, should he feel so inclined) have compromised on, more important than simply naming a bus station in someone's honor. Unless you guys are, like every dutiful American, watching C-SPAN 24 hours a day, I'm starting to wonder exactly how the international media has been reporting ANYTHING that goes on in the United States, and whose side they've been taking.

You claimed that Obama has used his veto about 300 times in the last Congressional session and the evidence you based this on was a misunderstanding of the fact that a 'Bill' in this context is legislation that has passed one of the houses of Congress, ignoring the fact that the same Bill has to pass both houses before it goes to the President.

Um, sass...a veto must be used against a completed bill (e.g., it already passed both houses and was plopped on his desk before he can "veto" the thing, right?) I was just going on the math Danivon gave me that there were 561 (or something like that) completed bills that went to the President, and x# he signed. I pulled out of piece of paper and pencil and did the math. Did I forget to mention my major was originally political science? and that I am quite aware of how a bill becomes a law? Yes, I was under the impression that they were completed bills; because the point of the WaPo article was to "prove" that Congress was doing jack shit, as far as the workload they pulled off (or didn't). In any case, the WaPo numbers, according to the number you gave me, Danivon, were in the very least the usual exaggeration they feed to their readers.