Found this via Reddit. It’s series of diagrams showing US Senate voting patterns 1989-2013.
The growth in partisanship is quite stark (and disturbing). One comment compared it to cell division.
Looks like neither side wants to be bipartisan.
Unless you’re Fred Hiatt or some other Broderist, why should you find it disturbing? The two parties represent a clear choice of where we should go as a nation. Why is that bad?
Because of how little good gets done. And because things are so partisan, that sometimes some issue comes along that everyone agrees something must be done, but any progress is stopped by fighting. Think of all the appointments that Obama has tried to make that have been delayed or stopped because of Republicans just wanting to shoot down anything Obama does.
The American system wasn’t designed to run at 100% efficiency, with no fighting going on, delays are built into the system. But it also was designed to have constant fighting between the parties keeping almost everything from moving.
But what if I want nothing to get done?
That’s not clear from the graph. Given the way it is made, there is no way it could indicate that one side is partisan while the other is not.
Ah, the “We think government is bad, so just put us in charge so we can prove how bad it can be.” argument.
I can see the argument for having a big expensive government that provides lots of public services. And I can see the argument for having a small cheap government that does very little. But I can’t see any sense in having a big expensive government that does very little.
The government does a zillion things under current law. What I’m confused about is why Congress needs to be changing thousands of laws every year. I just don’t see how that’s a measure of a Congress’ usefulness. The founders created a system with multiple veto points precisely because they didn’t want Congress to be too productive. A productive Congress is usually restricting liberty, not expanding it.
Congress needn’t micromanage the entire Federal code every session. But it does need to do basic things like appropriations on a pretty regular basis. Also, in any sufficiently complex undertaking, conditions are always changing, and coherent responses to those conditions do need to be made. And, I know this is a surprise to many, laws sometimes get made that turn out to have problems, whether those be drafting errors, unintended consequences, or inevitable failure to address the aforementioned changes in circumstance.
So Congress really does need to get some work done every session. Total inaction is not a good option.
We don’t have total inaction. They passed over 1000 laws last year. But you’re right about appropriations. Congress hasn’t done that right in a long time. But the passage of new laws, most of what they say Congress should be working on is not actually an urgent problem.
Actually, it was 223.
Different sites measure it differently. This one seems to have the strictest methodology:
A news article from 2012 could not possibly tell you that there were 1,000 laws passed in 2014.
The fact is that 223 bills were sent to the President last year and were signed into law. There’s no other way to measure it.
Then 2014 was a very productive year, comparable to past productive years.
Not even an acknowledgment of your very poor cite? Bad form, dude.
My cite is obviously using a different methodology, because it produced much lower numbers. Ravenman has not actually produced a cite at all, but rather than be a dick about it I just trusted him and tried to get at the truth by finding other cites. I realize that’s not how we do thing on SDMB, but I’m trying to change the culture a little here.
This is your claim:
Your cite was an article published/updated in August of 2012. Unless the methodology being used is TIME TRAVEL I’m thinking your cite is worthless in supporting your claim.
As I said, different sources use different methodologies:
The source I saw was probably treating resolutions as laws passed. The media tends to be ignorant about pretty basic stuff, so this kind of thing can happen.
I think I speak for all of us when I ask: Can you tell us more about this “different methodology” involving time travel?
I’m not sure you get it. When you say “last year” that means 2014. Perhaps you are referring to the 113th congress which would be 2013 and 2014. In any case, your cite was from 2012. It has nothing to do with whether it’s counting resolutions or actual bills signed into law - it’s from 2012!
At least the govtrack cite above has the right time period.