In Praise of a Do-nothing Congress

[Geee]

American Thinker:

Here's a question: how can we expect to have small government if we condemn Congress for not growing it?

It's always a disturbing experience when you're accosted with a picture of Harry Reid, as I was upon logging on to Drudge Monday afternoon. But at least his image bore a fitting caption: "MOST FUTILE EVER." I then clicked the link and found myself at The Washington Times - normally a quite sane organ of the media - and learned the meaning of the caption: the Times was lamenting a do-nothing Congress and presented Reid as its poster boy. Writes the paper, "It's official: Congress ended its least-productive year in modern history after passing 80 bills - fewer than during any other session since year-end records began being kept in 1947."

Writes Duke, "It's official: conservatives are completely confused about what begets big government."

The paper then expanded on its theme, pointing out that Congress set a record for "legislative futility" according to something called the "futility index."

I'll tell you what's futile: complaining about a loss of freedom while chastising legislators for not spawning enough bills.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but my understanding is that a "bill" that's signed by the president becomes a law. I also have this goofy notion that a law is by definition a removal of a freedom, as it states that there's something you must or must not do. Ergo, enslaved as I am by the old math, my figuring informs that the more laws we have, the less free we are. It then seems to follow - at least using my white male linear logic - that since we continually enact more laws but hardly ever rescind any, every year the progressives make us progressively less free.
Thus, when I see "do-nothing" and "Congress" in close proximity, it occurs to me that "do" has many definitions. And when government doeth, I think of the definition in the following Lord of the Flies dialogue: "The Chief and Roger.... They hate you, Ralph. They're going to do you."
So if you complain about a do-nothing Congress, I ask, what is it exactly that you want them to "do," whom do you think they'll "do" it to, and what do you think will be done to you? Our current Congress passed 80 bills. How many more do you want and how many more until we're done for?