Absurdity Trends
The numbers don't lie — but Congress might. A data-driven look at legislative absurdity, because someone has to keep score.
Tracking 25 real bills and counting
Average Absurdity by Category
Which policy areas produce the most absurd legislation? Higher is worse (or funnier, depending on your perspective).
Absurdity Distribution
How many bills at each absurdity level? The chart Congress doesn't want you to see.
Bills by Status
Where legislation goes to live, die, or linger indefinitely in committee purgatory.
Cost to Taxpayers
What your elected officials cost you, broken down to an uncomfortable level of specificity.
535
Members of Congress
435 House + 100 Senate
All pulling in the same salary since 2009
$174,000
Base Salary / Year
Unchanged since 2009 — no raise
Speaker gets $223,500. Leadership gets $193,400.
$93.1M
Total Congressional Salary / Year
Just salaries. Not staff. Not benefits.
The price of gridlock, simplified
~147
Avg. House Session Days / Year
Senate averages ~165 days
The rest is "district work." Sure.
$633,265
Cost Per Session Day
Salary cost when Congress is in session
That's just the salaries, not the catering
$255,041
Cost Per Calendar Day
Yes, including weekends and holidays
Your money never takes a recess
Fun Fact
Every post office naming ceremony costs taxpayers approximately $633,265 in congressional salary time.
And they do it a lot. In the 117th Congress, over 60 bills were just naming post offices.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
A few more numbers to contextualize the machine.
$6.9B
Legislative Branch Budget (FY2024)
Includes salaries, staff, the Capitol Police, the Library of Congress, and the printing of bills nobody reads.
~$2.9B
House & Senate Office Allowances
For staffers who write the bills their bosses haven't read and won't vote on.
60+
Post Office Namings (117th Congress)
The most bipartisan achievement in modern history: agreeing on building names.
6.4
Average Absurdity Score
Across all 25 rated bills. A perfectly mediocre democracy.
Methodology: Absurdity scores are assigned by the Absurdity Index editorial board on a scale of 1–10 based on legislative substance, naming creativity, and general affront to democratic principles. Salary data from the Congressional Research Service. Session day averages from the Library of Congress. Cost figures are simplified for editorial clarity.