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Despite the idea that Congress is gridlocked, it passed 78 laws in the 2022-2023 Congress.

• jfengel 2y ago
  How many of them are nontrivial? Trivial as in renewing an old law, authorizing payment for the operations they already passed, or naming a post office. What's left isn't zero, but it's not much more than a handful.
  • refurb 2y ago
    > How many of them are nontrivial? I wouldn't consider a budget bill to be "non-trivial"?
    • jfengel 2y ago
      It is when all it does is fund what they've already decided on. Appropriations bills just fund priorities established by existing law. All it does is keep the executive branch doing its job. Which seems like the bare minimum and even that much is often too much to ask.
      • refurb 2y ago
        Thats not how budgets are set, so they are actually contentious. And they don’t fall under “laws passed”, only modifications are. But regardless, of the 78 laws passed only 5 were around appropriations. Of the remaining 75 they included infrastructure, veterans affairs, trade, hunting, Native American rights, research, workers rights, disaster relief, export laws, internal relations, and crime. So clearly plenty of laws do get passed by Congress despite your claim of a “high bar”. What it really sounds like is laws you want aren’t passed but that somehow supports the idea Congress is broken.