ABSTRACT
Congress should be productive when it needs to be—demonstrating this by making around four hundred total and twelve important laws per Congress. Congress's principal product is laws. Federal laws regulate social, political, and economic behavior by individuals, groups, corporations, and governments, including the national one. Laws are becoming fewer and longer because Congress has a growing penchant for what are frequently called omnibus bills, single legislative packages that contain many parts that in the past may have been approved separately. Although the Constitution extended power to conduct foreign affairs to both the executive and legislative branches, the president has dominated much of the policy making on the issue. Its legislative action—and inaction for that matter—is rarely taken with consideration for long-term effects. But divided governments have produced legislative records of ideological coherence as well. Ideological inconsistency is sometimes evident within individual pieces of legislation.
