The issue is not just bill counts or partisan arguments; it is whether lawmakers can act as an independent branch when White Houses move first.
Congress’s weakness is easiest to see when the White House becomes the center of gravity. In CBS News reporting on the state of Congress, critics described a legislature that retains major constitutional authority but often operates in the shadow of presidential power.
That framing changes the usual complaint. The question is not only why lawmakers argue, move slowly or disappoint voters. It is why an institution built to legislate, oversee and check presidents so often appears to be reacting to them.
The White House is the measuring stick
Philip Wallach, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told CBS News that many members increasingly define their role around the president: backing a White House controlled by their party or opposing one controlled by the other.
That shift matters because Congress is supposed to be more than a partisan extension of presidential politics. Its committees, hearings, spending powers and lawmaking process are meant to give the legislative branch an independent institutional voice.
CBS News reported that President Trump has issued more than 260 executive orders during his current term. The report also treated executive action as a broader pattern, noting that the two presidents before him also relied heavily on such tools.
Executive action can make presidents look more decisive than Congress. But it also highlights the central tension: when lawmakers do not settle questions through statutes, presidents have more room to act first.
The branch still has the constitutional tools
Congress has not lost its formal authority. Article I of the Constitution gives it central powers over lawmaking, spending, taxation and war powers.
Carl Hulse, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, told CBS News that Congress has ceded too much power to the executive branch. He pointed to areas including tariffs and war powers, and argued that authority given up by Congress is difficult to reclaim.
Hulse has covered Capitol Hill since the Reagan administration, and CBS News presented his view as a long-term assessment rather than a reaction to one vote or one Congress.
Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, described Congress to CBS News as both broken and diminished. The point was not that the institution lacks constitutional standing. It was that the practice of using that standing has weakened.
A thin record with notable exceptions
CBS News described the 119th Congress as having passed fewer bills than many predecessors. Republicans control the House and Senate, but that has not automatically translated into a large legislative output.
The record is not empty. CBS pointed to a major Republican tax bill projected to cut taxes by $4.5 trillion over a decade. It also cited a bipartisan housing bill.
Those examples are important because they show Congress can still legislate. They also make the larger question sharper: if action is possible, why does it so often arrive only in limited bursts?
Part of the answer is that narrow margins and party conflict can make bargaining expensive. Lawmakers may have incentives to show loyalty, draw contrasts and avoid concessions even when compromise would move policy forward.
Blame travels by party line
The CBS News account included familiar partisan explanations for dysfunction. Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, argued that Republicans do not truly control the House and described the chamber as chaotic.
Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican, offered the opposite case, accusing Democrats of putting politics over people under the current administration.
Those accounts point in different directions, but they produce a similar result. If each side sees the other as the source of the breakdown, accepting shared responsibility becomes harder.
That does not mean the parties are identical or that every fight should end in compromise. It means Congress has trouble functioning as an institution when its members primarily experience power through partisan wins and losses.
Public frustration is not the same as repair
CBS News cited a figure that nearly 9 in 10 Americans say they are unhappy with Congress. The report also invoked Will Rogers, whose jokes about lawmakers remain part of the long tradition of mocking Capitol Hill.
But public dislike has not been enough to fix the institution. Many voters can be angry at Congress in general while still rewarding the party, faction or member they see as fighting for them.
CBS News also described older lawmaking habits as having faded. Hulse contrasted today’s climate with the mid-1980s, when he said lawmakers had different life experiences and looser partisan identities. Binder used the idea of atrophied muscles to describe a Congress that has lost practice at legislating.
The result is a legislature that still has constitutional power, some capacity to pass major bills and a deeply dissatisfied public watching from outside. The presidency keeps gaining room not because Congress is powerless, but because it often fails to use its power in a sustained, independent way.
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