Least productive congress ever? Nearly

Nov. 26 (UPI) -- Congress is getting ready to finish off its year with just a few days left of work in 2013.

And unless they go on a tear, passing as many laws in the next 35 days as they have since the 113th Congress was sworn in in January, it will be the second-least productive in history.

According to Drew DeSilver the at Pew Research Center, Congress has passed just 44 substantive laws, and only 52 if ceremonial legislation is included in the count, in 2013.

In the same period of President George W. Bush's second term, in 2005, lawmakers managed to pass 113 bills. And in the 110th Congress, in 2007, they pushed out 120.

But as bad as this year's output has been, Congress was somehow even less productive in the first year of the previous Congress, the 112th, when it passed just 41 substantive laws by Thanksgiving.

In other words, Congress is doing exactly as poorly as the American people think it is, at least in terms of productivity.