August 4, 2008 8:25AM # 10,000 Bills in Congress, and the Annual Spending Process Ignored By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) --- SHARE > Before leaving for its August recess last week, Congress saw the introduction of its 10,000th bill. Meanwhile, not a single one of the twelve annual bills that direct the government’s spending priorities in 2009 has passed the Senate and only one has passed the House. Congress is neglecting its basic responsibility to manage the federal government, and is instead churning out new legislation about everything under the sun. What does Congress occupy itself with? A commemorative postage stamp on the subject of inflammatory bowel disease. Improbable claims of health care for all Americans. And, of course, bringing home pork. Read about it on the [Wash​ing​ton​Watch​.com blog](http://www.washingtonwatch.com/blog/2008/08/03/10000-bills-introduced-in-congress-while-government-management-goes-neglected/). ##### Related Tags [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).