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).

THE WAR ON OUR SOUTHERN BORDER

Obama, the Deportation King and Deportation Commander and Chief, is accused of doing nothing about the children coming across the Mexican border into America.  Yet, the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill that included 19,000 new border patrol officers and finishing the fence which the House never acted upon.  Now the administration has asked for $3.7 billion to address the problem.  It looks like he may get a third of that.  I heard this morning that a plane of mothers and children has been sent to Honduras.

Even the anti-Obama web site (http://lexingtonlibertarian.wordpress.com/tag/illegal-immigration/) says the following:
"It is true that a Bush-era law requires the border patrol to hand over child migrants from countries other than Mexico to the Department of Health and Human Services to be placed with a suitable relative. The administration is rightly calling for that law to be changed."
But congress has refused to act so far.

Perhaps Maria Cardona has said it best as quoted in CNN:( http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/09/politics/immigration-obama-distrust/)
"The issue of immigration is ripe with politics, especially in an election year. It motivates the Republican base, which is skeptical of reform and despises Obama.

But Democratic strategist Maria Cardona said Republicans are trying to have it both ways -- ask for a solution and criticize the President.

"They can't scream about the house being on fire and then cut off the water supply to put out that fire," she said." (bolding added)

CHILD REFUGEE PROBLEM IN U.S.

The influx of child refugees into the U.S., some accompanied by adults but many not, is creating a number of problems in addition to processing them:

One side effect of the crisis: Easier drug smuggling by cartels. "The arrival of large groups of women and children on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande is pulling agents away from their patrol stations elsewhere along the border, creating gaps in coverage that the traffickers can exploit, according to Chris Cabrera, the Border Patrol union representative here. The smugglers wait on the southern banks of the Rio Grande as migrant groups as large as 250 wade across at dusk and turn themselves in to the Border Patrol, he said. Then groups of single men proceed to cross under cover of darkness....The most recent statistics...show that narcotics seizures have fallen across the entire border with Mexico this year, with the drop being larger in Texas than the average."Joshua Partlow and Nick Miroff" in The Washington Post.  (http://webmailb.juno.com/webmail/new/5?userinfo=8b254f2f4f26b1dc56d8fe41da329a7b&count=1403622068&cf=SP2&randid=1822163293)

We should remember that there was a bill passed by the Senate and submitted to the House of Representatives but never acted upon that contained provision for 19,000 new border agents.  The inability of the House to act on anything but try to repeal Obamacare is causing problems I'm sure that opponents of immigration reform don't like.  Why can't they at least try to see if they can get through the 19,000 new agents?  Among other things it is a good lower paid jobs program. (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/07/complete-danged-fence.html)

DEPORTATION KING

While President Obama works to try to get immigration reform, he has become the deportation king.  Deportations were down about 10% in FY 2013 to 368,644,* perhaps because the President announced in June that he would defer deportations of children who were brought to this country illegally by their parents.  Home Land security says the number of these children exceeds 400,000.   It is reported that 82% of the deportations are of illegal immigrants who have been convicted of a crime. Nearly 2 million people have been deported during the first 5 years of the Obama presidency, some for the second or even third time.  There has been a steady increase in deportations since at least 1999 when there were 175,000 deportations.*

The Senate has passed an immigration reform bill that speaker Boehner refuses to bring to a vote in the House of Representatives even though the bill (S 744) passed the Senate with 68 votes** and has said there is no way he will go to a conference committee on the Senate bill.  Among the sticking points is a path to citizenship taking 13 yrs, securing our southern border, paying back taxes, and learning English.

I feel that the path to citizenship is so draconian that few will take the opportunity to do it.  I have at least favored "Build the Danged Fence"*** as a public works program though completing the double fence may not decrease illegal immigration much.  As I say in my piece: "If I was dictator, this wouldn't be my first choice as a public works program as it may not be much better than hiring one shift to dig holes and the next shift to fill them in.  But the fence is acceptable to the opponents of the Gang Of Eight proposal that passed the Senate whereas digging holes or, better yet,  improving highways or the smart grid isn't."


* http://webmailb.juno.com/webmail/new/5?userinfo=8b254f2f4f26b1dc56d8fe41da329a7b&count=1387637225&randid=1988503624
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/12/19/obama-administration-deportations-of-undocumented-immigrants-drops-in-2013/
http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-u-s-deportations/

** http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/guide-s744-understanding-2013-senate-immigration-bill
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/27/senate-immigration-reform-bill_n_3511664.html

***http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/07/complete-danged-fence.html

REPUBLICANS REALLY UPSET!

Now the Republicans are REALLY upset with President Obama because he wouldn't destroy Obamacare.  I guess that before they just didn't like him so they refused to move on anything the president was for, like immigration reform.  The House even refused to act on a Republican bill out of the Senate that cut the budget for 12 weeks below the Sequester level.  Democratic Senators approved it because they wanted a clean continuation bill.  Now that the Republicans are REALLY upset with the president they are refusing to do anything the president is for like immigration reform.  Ahhh, what's changed?