Randy Kuhl's latest blog post adds some facts to his contention that this Congress is slow. Kuhl claims that the current count of bills signed into law (82) is too few, and that too many of those bills (36) merely name post offices.
Absent from Kuhl's post is some important context. Let's compare the current Congress' numbers to the first session of the Republican-controlled 109th Congress. As of September 29, 2005, which, like today, was the day before the end of Congress' work that month, 76 laws had been signed by the President. Here's the last bill Bush signed on that day.
As for the issue of Post Offices, a little over 25% of the laws passed by the 109th Congress had to do with naming federal buildings.
The use of statistics without context is a classic, and annoying, political tactic. Nobody, other than an expert, has any idea how may bills the average Congress passes in nine months. Without context, Kuhl can spin a number into anything he wants it to be. With context, it becomes a non-issue. Always doubt a politician who bases an argument on bare numbers offered without context.
Comments
The context is very different, when you compare what's been done to how much the Democrats have promised to do. The it's not the fault of the House or the President... it's the Senate. They're dragging their old, toe-tapping asses on everything right now.
I agree that the Senate's wide stance is slowing everything down.