Absentee Congress

The Republicans have been so focused on their "conservative agenda," which isn't so much conservative (small government) as if is a "religious agenda," that they've gotten virtaully nothing done. From the Center for American Progress...

When Congress adjourns for the November elections later this week, "it appears that just 2 of the 11 required spending bills will pass." The budget will not have been enacted, forcing Congress to pass a stopgap measure to keep the federal government open. The legislative branch as also stumbled in its efforts to pass much-debated bills on lobbying reform, immigration, offshore oil drilling, minimum wage, and the estate tax. "A popular package of business and education tax credits is teetering." Long-time congressional analysts Thomas Mann of Brookings and Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute wrote recently, "[E]ven those of us with strong stomachs are getting indigestion from the farcical end of the 109th Congress. ... With few accomplishments and an overloaded agenda, it is set to finish its tenure with the fewest number of days in session in our lifetimes, falling well below 100 days this year." Indeed, this Congress will recess having been in session fewer days than the "Do-Nothing Congress" of 1948. A CBS News/New York Times poll finds 75 percent of voters can't name one thing Congress has accomplished. Only 25 percent said they approved of Congress's job performance. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) -- a member of the House leadership -- acknowledged, “We have not accomplished that we need to accomplish.” At the start of this month -- dubbed "Security September" -- the congressional leadership promised to deliver accomplishments that would be focused on national security. Instead, as a new Center for American Progress analysis underscores, Congress will depart Washington, D.C. leaving many critical national security matters unresolved: