Its amazing what some people will buy...

The Washington Post is running an editorial tomorrow (found HERE) that actually presents the case that the 111th Congress has been the most successful and productive Congress in 40 years... and the column is so popular with the editorial staff at the Post that they put it online a full day early.

With an approval rating of less than 24% and a confidences estimate even lower, the 111th Congress has, in my opinion, brought the US to a new level in bureaucratic partisan politics. Yes, they have put their super-majority to good use and passed much of what was on their legislative agenda for the last 6 months, but where is the evidence that the deficit they have compounded (by a factor of 270%, even by their own estimations) has benefited the country at all? Interest rates are still high, banks still aren't loaning money in volumes that will promote growth and economic expansion, unemployment is still rising across the nation, and the nation is still facing a near-crisis in regards to infrastructure and domestic industrial means. What have we gained?

Unemployment benefits have been extended! Great! That is good news for me, since I am still unemployed myself... but an additional six months of benefits does nothing to put me back to work, and gets me no closer to a job NOW, does it?

$70 billion was spent on green energy development and "smart-grid" electrical technologies so far, and not one penny of that investment is evident in the manner or means by which we continue to produce and distribute power in this country... NOT ONE PENNY'S WORTH! That is some successful legislating, yes sir! To the best of my knowledge, that money didn't slow unemployment, it didn't promote business growth, and it CERTAINLY hasn't reduced the cost of energy in the country, has it?

$7 billion was spent on further development of broadband Internet access across the nation... $7 billion dollars that has moved the estimated completion of "universal Internet access" ahead so that now we can expect that coverage to be complete by 2021 instead of 2030. Fantastic! So kids NOW can look forward to mobile Internet access that is coast-to-coast by the time they are 21 years old rather than 30 years old... how many jobs has that advancement generated?

Unbelievable.