This Congress is Worse Than 'Do-Nothing' - They’re Handing Power to Trump

The “do-nothing” label once mocked Congress under Harry Truman is now a generous assessment for the 119th Congress. Rather than exercising their legislative authority, Republicans in both chambers have largely ceded power to a president who rules by executive order, emergency declarations, and unilateral agency directives.

Past unified governments seized the moment to enact transformative policies. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act reshaped America’s social and economic landscape. Today’s Congress, however, has mostly funded the government and passed a tax package—dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”—that overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy while slashing Medicaid, food assistance, and clean energy incentives.

Meanwhile, Trump has amassed more than 250 executive orders early in his term, freezing federal grants, rewiring election rules, and imposing travel bans and asylum restrictions without congressional approval. He has declared ten national emergencies to bypass Congress, including imposing sweeping tariffs on allies and adversaries alike—actions the Supreme Court has repeatedly found unconstitutional.

Congress’s silence and complicity are deafening. Despite holding the power of the purse and war declarations, Republicans have barely challenged Trump’s military actions or his refusal to spend funds Congress appropriated. The House Speaker has blocked votes to end tariffs or release Justice Department files on Jeffrey Epstein, provoking rare bipartisan efforts to force votes through discharge petitions.

The result is a rubber-stamp legislature, dubbed “the Duma” by Trump ally Steve Bannon, that undermines the separation of powers foundational to American democracy. The Founders designed Congress as the “people’s branch,” more powerful than the executive. But today’s Congress has voluntarily shrunk into irrelevance, enabling authoritarian overreach and abandoning its duty to hold the president accountable.

If Republicans in the House and Senate want to avoid becoming a historical disgrace, they must reclaim their constitutional role. Otherwise, they risk cementing a dangerous precedent of legislative abdication and unchecked executive power.