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both the House and Senate. 25 were simple resolutions that are more about Congressional housekeeping and never get sent to the President. These cover things like minor corrections in passed legislation as it is engrossed and authorizing the use of the Capitol for ceremonies. That leaves you with 326.

All legislation isn’t created equal. Congress just passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill, but it also passed 40 bills  to rename a “facility of the United States Postal Service” aka a Post Office. 

Rather than writing it all out, here are some numbers to describe the 113^th Congress:

• 15,920 - Pieces of legislation introduced this Congress
• 351 – Pieces of legislation the House and Senate Agreed on.
• 326 – Legislation signed or to be signed by the President
• 173 – Millions of extra dollars given to massively over-budget, technically flawed, nuclear reprocessing boondoggle
• 149 - Billions of dollars appropriated for Overseas Contingency Operations (war-fighting slush fund)
• 55 – Hodge-podge of tax breaks extended through Dec 31, 2014
• 40 – Post Office namings
• 23 – Billions of dollars in fake savings attributed to the nearly $1 trillion Farm Bill
• 18 – Trillions of dollars of debt
• 16 – Days of government shutdown
• 16 – Other naming of structures
• 11 – Number of Appropriations bills enacted for fiscal year FY15 (supposed to be a dozen)
• 8 – Months Transportation Bill extended (until May 31, 2015)
• 6 – Continuing Resolutions providing temporary funding for FY14 and FY15
• 4 – Unrequested F-35s Congress added to budget
• 3 – Commemorative Coin Acts (someone had to specify the size of the blanks that will be used to make the National Baseball Hall of Fame commemorative coins
• 1 – Undoing of National Flood Insurance Programreform
• 0 – Years the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program extended

It’s also important to look at what didn’t get done. On the one hand, Congress didn’t pass hundreds of bills declaring days in honor of ice cream or beer or other interest groups, as they have in the past. But they also didn’t take up things like comprehensive tax reform, which was seriously discussed. Or enact a full reauthorization of the transportation bill. You can also add military compensation reformand reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act.

All of this lands in the lap of the 114^th Congress. The last two Congresses have had the excuse of not just divided government, but also divided Congress – with the House controlled by one party and the Senate by the other party – something that doesn’t happen that often. The country needs the President and the new Republican Congressional majority to roll up their sleeves, compromise, and lead.