As part of our look back at legislation in 2023, let's turn our eye to Congress. The federal government spent $6.13 trillion in the fiscal year 2023. About a third of that is discretionary spending - meaning it needs to be approved by Congress and the President as part of the appropriations process. So how well did Congress do with spending your money?
One measure of success could be looking at how many bills Congress passes in the year. The 118th Congress is half way through its two-year term, so you would expect to see good progress. GovTrack identifies that more than 12,000 bills and resolutions have been introduced so far in the 118th Congress. This stakeholder page identifies all the bills that were enacted in 2023 - all 29 of them. In addition, I've included the joint resolutions that have been enacted as the process is very similar. Which makes a total of 34 bills. A success rate, so far, of about 0.003%.
It doesn't sound like a lot,but let's compare to other years. In 2022, Congress enacted 278 bills. That was the final year of the 117th Congress, so perhaps an unfair comparison as you would expect more legislation to pass in the second year. By the end of 2021, the first year of that Congress, 75 bills had been enacted. Still significantly more than 2023, though another disappointing year for Congress from a productivity point of view.
This lack of productive outcomes can be explained by a number of factors. I have already discussed at length the travails among Republican Representatives to find a suitable speaker, which has sucked up a lot of legislative time and energy. The very small and diminishing majority they hold has also made it difficult for the House to agree on legislation in the face of divisions within the House Republican conference.
But maybe it's a case of quality over quantity? Perhaps the 34 bills and resolutions are so important and impactful for Americans that no more were needed. Let's take a look in more detail at what was enacted.
Appropriations
The top priority for congress is deciding how to spend the more than $2 trillion in discretionary spending. The first challenge for the new Congress was the rapidly approaching debt ceiling, and in March they enacted the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 which averted the US defaulting on its debts for the first time in its history by increasing the debt ceiling. So far so good.
I explained in this blog post back in October how Congress has to pass 12 appropriations bills to fully fund federal agencies to do the things they do. Wrangling over what these bills should cover means that Congress rarely manages to do so on time, and has to pass continuing resolutions to keep the government functioning by extending the deadline. So the next appropriations bill is the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2024 and Other Extensions Act, the bill that extended the deadline to November 17 and in the process brought down Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker and began the speakership kerfuffle. This was supposed to provide enough time to get all 12 bills passed but... that didn't happen. So on November 16 the imaginatively titled Further Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act, 2024 was enacted, which kicked the can further down the road. This time there are two deadlines - January 19 2024 for four of the appropriations bills and February 2 for the remaining eight.
Ok, great, so in the remaining month or so surely Congress managed to pass the 12 bills? Well, the good news is that one passed. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 was enacted on December 22 to fund the military. Nothing so far on the other 11, and with the first deadline fast approaching all eyes are again on Congress as a tentative deal is reached to yet again avert a shutdown.
Veterans
There were a lot of bills introduced in 2023 which sought to improve the lives of veterans, and eight of them were enacted. They include the Wounded Warrior Access Act which establishes an online tool that veterans can use to request a copy of their claims, and educates veterans about those people who may attempt to cheat them out of their benefits. The Korean American VALOR Act expands eligibility to medical and dental care to certain South Korean veterans who served in Vietnam. And S112 which strengthens benefits for children of Vietnam veterans with spina bifida or other birth defects. And Fiscal Year 2023 Veterans Affairs Major Medical Facility Authorization Act which authorizes major medical facility projects for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
COVID
Even though the pandemic is officially over, two of the bills related to COVID-19. The COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 declassified information related to the origin of the virus. And HJres7 formally terminated the COVID-19 emergency declared by the President in 2020.
Native American Lands
There were three bills which in some way amended the land rights of native Americans: The Grand Ronde Reservation Act Amendment of 2023, HR2839 To amend the Siletz Reservation Act and the Pala Band of Mission Indians Land Transfer Act of 2023.
Hunting
The Duck Stamp Modernization Act of 2023 is sadly not making it compulsory for all US stamps to feature modern ducks, it allows the use of electronic rather than physical stamps to authorize waterfowl hunting. The Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act exempts weapons used for training in archery, hunting, or other shooting sports from a prohibition on using federal education funds for certain weapons.
Infrastructure
There were some welcome bills to address America's crumbling infrastructure. The Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2023, Part II aims to support improvements to airports and the NOTAM Improvement Act of 2023 seeks to improve air travel safety. The 5G Spectrum Authority Licensing Enforcement Act 5G SALE Act relates to auctions for use of the 5G mobile network spectrum.
Other Bills of Note
In a year where election integrity was very much on the radar, the only election related bill to be enacted was S2747 which amends the Federal Election Campaign Act to tweak administrative fines. Congress also sought to strengthen trading ties with Taiwan through the United States-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade First Agreement Implementation Act. And my personal favorite, the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act to improve the organ procurement network, a topic featured on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver back in December.
To Conclude
There are others of course. A bunch of joint resolutions appointing citizen regents to the Smithsonian Board of Regents. A couple of bills renaming Veterans Affairs clinics. A bill to create a commemorative coin for the 250th anniversary of the United States Marine Corps. So is it enough? A lot of these bills were important, and few would argue that better support for veterans is not a good thing, but where are the 12 budget bills that is the key function of Congress? Where are other bills to address the important issues facing Americans?
Members of Congress are paid $174,000 a year. So the total salary bill comes to over $93m a year, though of course the actual bill would be much higher if you added in aides and other support staff. But just looking at the salaries of the members themselves, that works out at $2.7m of taxpayer money per bill that was passed.
You may conclude that the American taxpayer deserves a better deal.
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Cover photo by Louis Velazquez on Unsplash