The answer to the query in the headline is “not much,” but that is considered a vast improvement over recent years. Here is the analysis from Bo Harmon, vice president of political affairs for BIPAC.

There are a number of legislative items that members of both parties acknowledge need to be addressed. Implementation of Obamacare. Immigration reform. Tax code and entitlement reform. A long term solution to the debt ceiling crisis. Privacy security. Patent reform. Trade.

With all of these issues, the public increasingly frustrated with gridlock in Washington, and an election coming up where Congress will want to be able to talk about their accomplishments, we should expect to see some major legislative action in 2014, right? Wrong. Well, mostly wrong. There is actually a glimmer of hope that 2014 will produce more than 2013. Though, that’s a bit like saying “we scored zero points last game and expect to do better than that this time.”

The reason that Congress hasn’t accomplished much since 2010 is the same reason we don’t expect to see much more in 2014. With the House in the hands of Republicans and the Senate and White House controlled by Democrats, and each side increasingly responsive to the most ideological polarizing parts of their base, they disagree on how to proceed. Both sides understand the things that need to be addressed, but there is zero consensus on how to do it.

The Obamacare debate is a prime example. Not a single Republican in either chamber voted for original passage though many key features of the legislation were included in previous GOP health care reform bills. Once Republicans took the House in 2010, GOP leadership took the position that repeal of the legislation in total was the only option and have refused to offer or support tweaks or fixes to problems. The Republicans believe “it’s not possible to ‘fix’ something fundamentally incompatible with our ideology.” Politically, they also believe if the legislation fails they will benefit and thus have little political incentive to improve the law. From their perspective, it is BETTER politically to have as many things go wrong with ObamaCare as possible.

This same standoff occurs on issue after issue – taxes, immigration, entitlement reform, etc. But, it is a new year and in our optimistic resolutions, we see some possibility of federal action on a handful of bills. There was a small bright spot in December when a two-year budget compromise passed that would avoid the possibility of a shutdown and eliminated some of the most irrational sequester cuts. This rare bipartisan effort was criticized by many however as small ball for not addressing bigger, long term issues. Even still, it was the best that could be achieved in the current gridlock environment.

The environment is also different than it was in 2013. At that time, Democrats were emboldened by the President’s popularity and felt little need to compromise, believing they had received a mandate from the 2012 elections to do as they wanted. With the President’s approval ratings significantly lower now, the confidence to act as boldly is similarly evaporating. Conversely, Republicans spent 2013 in fear of retribution from the Tea Party. Now, Boehner in the House and McConnell in the Senate have openly broken ranks with the Tea Party and seem almost eager to act in ways that show consensus.   The budget deal and the changed political environment provide the foundation for some compromise legislation to take place on issues that need to be addressed. Small, incremental changes to a handful of issues is possible, likely driven by the middle. We may see some movement on immigration, trade, patent reform, etc; even if more contentious things like tax reform remain unlikely.

While many would like to see more comprehensive solutions and small, incremental changes to immigration or Obamacare implementation may not be at the top of your industry agenda, we are dealing with a situation where NOTHING has been getting done and we need to make an effort to support and reward even baby steps at basic government functionality. Only then will members of Congress have the political courage to attempt larger, more comprehensive changes and take a look at issues that are at the forefront of your industry agenda. It is a shame that we have reached this point where expectations for our Congressional “leaders” is so low but they have demonstrated over the last three years that nothing else can be expected from divided government driven by ideological extremes.