Since World War II (the earliest we have data), Congress has typically enacted 4-6 million words of new law in each two-year Congress. However, those words have been enacted in fewer but larger bills. Therefore, the generally decreasing number of bills enacted into law does not reflect less legislative work is occurring.
"Enacted legislation including via incorporation" refers to laws passed by a legislature (like the U.S. Congress) where one bill absorbs or includes provisions from other bills, becoming law as a single statute, often through omnibus packages (like the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act"), making it a common method for passing complex policy by combining many ideas into one legislative package. This process streamlines lawmaking by bundling topics, allowing members to vote on comprehensive bills rather than many separate ones, and is tracked by sites like GovTrack to show which introduced bills became law this way.
Here are the actual numbers - https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics
It's not as cut and dry as one would think:
Since World War II (the earliest we have data), Congress has typically enacted 4-6 million words of new law in each two-year Congress. However, those words have been enacted in fewer but larger bills. Therefore, the generally decreasing number of bills enacted into law does not reflect less legislative work is occurring.
"Enacted legislation including via incorporation" refers to laws passed by a legislature (like the U.S. Congress) where one bill absorbs or includes provisions from other bills, becoming law as a single statute, often through omnibus packages (like the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act"), making it a common method for passing complex policy by combining many ideas into one legislative package. This process streamlines lawmaking by bundling topics, allowing members to vote on comprehensive bills rather than many separate ones, and is tracked by sites like GovTrack to show which introduced bills became law this way.