Jim Bunning Provides
Feb 27, 2010 Jobs Bills, republicans suck
My girlfriend’s mother is still recovering from her car wreck in December. She was due to start a new job the next day, but of course she’s now unemployed — and as a result of the accident, she will probably never work as a psychiatric nurse again. She depends on COBRA and unemployment during this period of transition as she seeks to go on disability at the age of 55.
Enter Jim Bunning, Republican Senator from Kentucky. He’s single-handedly holding back the extension of unemployment and COBRA and is very annoyed that doing so causes him to miss his basketball game. Waah! Never mind the 1.2 million American workers losing their safety net in the middle of a recession.
The “substance” of Bunning’s objection is that any extension of benefits should come out of stimulus money, which is a backhanded way of perverting spending decisions already made by Congress. We’re talking about$10 billion, which is enough to run the occupation of Iraq for about a week. Of course, the Senate will be able to override Bunning next week, but the delay will create turmoil — and extra costs:
Judy Conti, a lobbyist for the (National Employment Law Project), said that even when Bunning is eventually thwarted and the extension is passed, state governments will still have to deal with the extra administrative costs of shutting down and restarting the extended benefits programs.
“Once the program is retroactively reauthorized, the federal government is going to send the same amount of money, but his own state government is going to have to spend even more money,” Conti said.
“What happened last night was an absolute disgrace. There is a time and a place a purpose for debate on deficit reduction, but you don’t make your stand on the back of the unemployed. It is ill-informed, counter productive and just cruel.”
John Cornyn (R-Texas) spoke in support of his compatriot: “I admire the courage of the junior senator from Kentucky…Somebody has to stand up finally and say, ‘No more inter-generational theft!’” Cornyn said nothing about the $709 billion cost of the Iraq war that was charged to a Bank of China credit card from 2003-2008.
I said weeks ago that these were precisely the optics Democrats were after when they stopped producing omnibus jobs bills. Republicans are playing right into their hands. Bunning won’t be running for re-election this year, but the GOP is setting itself up for a big fall and he’s providing the perfect optics for campaign ads.
When asked to release his hold, Bunning replied “tough shit.” Stay classy, Republicans! You’re doing great!
