The Do-Nothing 111th Congress?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

From a recent National Journal poll:

The perception that bickering is on the rise has doubled since January 2009, when Obama took office and 50 percent of respondents thought the two parties were working together more than in the past. That number had dropped to 25 percent by early April, 2009. This week it came in at eight percent.

Well, that seems accurate enough. I sort of wonder who the 8% are who persist in believing the parties are working more closely than in the past, but still, not bad, American public! Unfortunately, the American public then blew it on the next question:

At first, it’s hard to make sense of this. Whether or not you approve of what Congress has done this term, they’ve done a lot. There’s the big three, of course: a huge stimulus package, healthcare reform, and financial reform. And then plenty of smaller things: the Lilly Ledbetter Act, college loan reform, rescuing GM and Chrysler, credit card disclosure, gas mileage improvements, and plenty of other stuff. So why the disconnect?

I’d guess four things are at work here. First, the public has no idea how much major legislation usually gets passed in a single congressional session. So even if they’re aware of the three major bills that passed this term, they don’t realize that’s more than usual.1 Second, they don’t perceive that most of this stuff affects them. Stimulus has gotten a bad rap, healthcare reform doesn’t take effect until 2014, and financial reform is too abstract to understand. Third, their bar is set high. Sure, three big things got done, but they expected more. What about climate change? And immigration reform? And DADT repeal? And closing Gitmo? And four, the economy sucks. As long as Congress hasn’t fixed that, nothing else really matters.

1And in fairness, compare Obama’s first two years to George Bush’s first two years. Bush got a big tax cut, declared war on al-Qaeda, passed the PATRIOT Act, passed Sarbanes-Oxley, and signed campaign finance reform into law. Compared to that, it’s not clear why the average citizen should consider the current Congress any more successful than usual.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate