It has certainly earned its 9% approval rating. Ezra Klein says “Let us count the ways.” Here are the bullet points; click over to read the unpleasant details.
- It’s not passing laws
- It’s hideously unpopular
- It’s incredibly polarized
- It has set back economic recovery
- It presided over the first downgrade of America’s credit rating in history
- It created a “supercommittee” to rescue it from itself; the supercommittee failed
- It spent hours voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act knowing full well repeal would fail
- It has not put forth a budget for several years
- It’s failed to appropriate money on time, money needed to keep government running
- It couldn’t get a basic infrastructure bill passed, one which pays for road, port and airport maintenance
- It forced a shutdown of the FAA
- It refused to confirm appointees to the Federal Reserve in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression
- Objective observers call it the worst Congress ever
- It’s avoided solving national problems and has created more
You know what’s worse? As far as I can tell there’s a whole bunch of Tea Party voters who think these results are great. Government didn’t do anything!