THE DO NOTHING SPEAKER GOES

Well I for one do not shed a tear for the retirement of the Speaker of the House Of Representatives John Boehner.  What he will go down in history for is presiding over the worst two years of passing bills in the post-WWII history of the House. In 2013, the House only passed 57 bills that became law for the least productive year.  My only reserve is that Boehner's replacement might be even worse.  Well, lets see what Paul Ryan actually does.  Let's be optimistic unless he proves otherwise.

I had hoped that Boehner would have given us a vote on the Senate immigration reform bill, but no luck.  It seems Republicans don't want to try to solve the problem but just use immigration as a whipping boy.  We are supposed to be happy that he avoided a government shutdown again.

This record was preceded by a number of years that set records for non-productivity at the time since 1947: 2012-61, 2011-90, and 2009-129.*  You will note that 2010 is an exception with 258 bills passed which was not a record at the time; however.  And so it was during administration of Barack Obama.  Some want to blame Obama. He entered the Presidency as a conciliator, but found that, to get 20% of he wanted, he had to give the Republicans 80% of what they wanted.  Furthermore the Republicans would then beat Obama over the head with things that he compromised on like delaying the tax increase on the wealthy.  Otherwise it was pretty much a slash and burn Congress.  For the House record see the Huffington Post article (quotes in italics):*

As 2012 comes to a close, the 112th Congress [Jan. 5 2011-Jan. 3 2012] is set to go down in American history as the most unproductive session since the 1940s.
According to a Huffington Post review of all the bills that hit President Barack Obama's desk this session, Obama has signed 219 bills passed by the 112th Congress into law [Reference two** says 284 total for the two year period]. With less than a week to go in the year, there are currently another 20 bills pending presidential action. In comparison, the last Congress passed 383 bills, while the one before it passed 460. [Note: Reference two** says 385 bills passed.]

The 104th Congress (1995-1996) currently holds the ignominious distinction of being the least productive session of Congress, according to the U.S. House Clerk's Office, which has records going back to 1947. Just 333 bills became law during that two-year period, [Reference two** says 337] *** meaning the 112th Congress needs to send nearly 100 more bills to Obama's desk in the next few days if it wants to avoid going down in history -- an unlikely prospect, considering that both chambers are squarely focused on averting the "fiscal cliff" before the new year.
The 112th Congress has done far less than the 80th Congress (1947-1948), which President Harry Truman infamously dubbed the "Do-Nothing Congress." Those lawmakers passed 906 bills that became law.

The 213th congress (Jan. 3, 2013 to Jan. 02, 2015) was only slightly better  than the 212th with 296 bills enacted. They did spend a lot of time passing bills to repeal the so-called Obamacare (the ACA)- 37 times to be exact in an exercise of futility.  And most things past were things like naming new post offices and naming special days.  I agree that Obamacare could be much improved - single payer for one example rather than the personal mandate, but they didn't even try this.**  But the House did not just vote against Obamacare, they didn't vote to replace it with anything.  They don't want government sponsored health insurance at all.

And in 2014, the House initiated the fewest bills since at least 1984.  Lest you think that President Obama has been vetoing a lot of bills, there were no vetoes in any of these 4 years.

* http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-08-14/unproductive-congress-not-passing-bills/57060096/1
**http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/28/congress-unproductive_n_2371387.html
*** It should be pointed out that even the 385 bills passed by the 111th Congress is probably also a record low up to then because the only two worst numbers were for Congresses in effect for less than two years: the 107 Congress (Jan. 3, 2001-Nov. 22, 2002) and the even shorter 104th Congress (Jan. 4, 1995 - Oct. 4, 1996).