Mike Johnson Claims This Year Was a Productive One for Congress

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this week, Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) claimed that he and his GOP colleagues in Congress had an extraordinarily productive year, compared to other first years under a newly sworn-in presidential term.

President Donald Trump’s first year back in office has been “one of the most productive first years of any Congress in our lifetimes,” Johnson wrote.

“Even with the slimmest of congressional majorities and historic obstruction from Democrats, President Trump and Republicans have kept our promises, restored order and laid the groundwork for an extraordinary new year,” Johnson asserted, claiming that, among other items, Republicans and Trump have supposedly “stabiliz[ed] inflation.”

The claim that this has been a more productive year than usual contradicts both historical record and public sentiment.

Congress certainly wasn’t unproductive last year, passing a number of right-wing priorities into law, including making Trump’s 2017 tax cuts that mainly benefited the wealthy permanent, cutting regulations passed by the previous administration, and increasing spending for the military and for Trump’s mass deportation program.

But Johnson is wrong that this was “one of the most productive first years” ever — it wasn’t even the most productive first year of a new presidential term in the past four “first years” of a new president, coming in dead last when it comes to the number of bills that became law.

Only 57 bills that Congress passed were signed by Trump this past year. Conversely, former President Joe Biden signed 81 bills into law within his first year. Trump’s first year of his first term was even more productive, with him signing 97 bills into law. And former President Barack Obama signed 125 bills into law by the end of his first year in office.

Notably, Johnson’s claim that inflation has been “stabilized” is also errant — the latest inflation report shows that inflation was at a year-to-year rate of 2.7 percent in November, hardly a huge change from the 2.9 percent that it was before Trump took office. And importantly, the most recent report may have been skewed by the government shutdown.

If Johnson is trying to sell the idea that his Congress was more productive than usual to the American public, they likely won’t buy it, as polling shows most voters are not happy with the job the legislative branch has performed so far.

A Gallup poll published earlier this month, for example, found that only 17 percent of Americans give Congress a positive approval rating. In that same poll, only 35 percent of Americans gave Johnson a positive approval rating.

The poll showed similar approval ratings for both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, at 24 percent and 29 percent approval, respectively. But other polls demonstrate that voters are ready for a change in Congress.

A Quinnipiac University poll from earlier this month, asking voters who they prefer to win the 2026 midterms, found that only 43 percent want Republicans to retain control of Congress, while 47 percent want Democrats to run things starting in 2027.