Thread: Thousands of federal workers furloughed because of Senate

I hope JD2 can make it a little longer on existing roads. Somebody needs to ask what Harry Reid was doing that he couldn't bring this bill up in a timely matter so it could be funded as the law requires. Get off Bunning. He's retiring to be with his indebted grandchildren.

Originally Posted by loservillelabor

I hope JD2 can make it a little longer on existing roads. Somebody needs to ask what Harry Reid was doing that he couldn't bring this bill up in a timely matter so it could be funded as the law requires. Get off Bunning. He's retiring to be with his indebted grandchildren.

Exactly. Hey! I wonder what those 496,000 non-DOT workers were doing before they got their permanent walking papers last week? They didn't get a furlough. They got the axe.

MARCH 2, 2010.

One Senator Holds Up Bill, in New Level of Gridlock

By NAFTALI BENDAVID

The Senate tied itself in knots Monday as it tried to get around a single lawmaker's objection to a spending bill, a showdown that has become emblematic of capital's partisan gridlock.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R., Ky.) again blocked a $10 billion bill that would have extended unemployment benefits and other programs after halting its progress last week. And on Monday, the impact of his blockade started biting, with the expiration of benefits to 100,000 people and the suspension of 41 transportation projects across the country.

Mr. Bunning is holding things up by objecting to a "unanimous consent" request to advance the bill quickly, a routine maneuver for moving legislation forward that requires all senators to go along.

As the $10 billion measure foundered, Senate leaders began debating another, more than $145 billion bill that would achieve some of the same ends, including prolonging unemployment insurance until year's end. A vote on that bill is expected by Friday, and lawmakers hope to make it retroactive so that jobless workers would still get their benefits, albeit delayed.

Even so, those who lost benefits might have to reapply, resulting in delays from three weeks to two months, according to Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, a left-leaning advocacy and research group.

Democrats used Mr. Bunning's move to highlight what they said was a pattern of Republicans gumming up the works on even the most popular measures.

Many Republican leaders, cognizant of the political peril surrounding Mr. Bunning's action, quietly distanced themselves. But others, including Arizona's Jon Kyl, the Senate's second-ranking Republican, supported Mr. Bunning's right to raise the cost issue. "Every time we pass one of these bills, we are adding to the deficit, and we are not creating jobs," Mr. Kyl said. "And it's a legitimate point for Republicans to make."

European Pressphoto Agency

Sen. Jim Bunning, shown last month, blocked a $10 billion bill that would have extended jobless benefits.

The standoff has brought renewed attention to the Senate's arcane procedures, which give enormous power to individual senators and have prompted many people, including House members, to call the Senate dysfunctional.

"It might work under the Senate rules that they can do that, but it certainly doesn't work for American families," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.). "I hope Republicans will reconsider and think about their constituents standing in the unemployment line as we speak."

Mr. Bunning says he favors the unemployment-benefits extension but wants it to be paid for. The current bill would add to the deficit. "If we can't find $10 billion to pay for something we all support, we will never pay for anything on the floor of this U.S. Senate," Mr. Bunning said.

According to the Department of Labor, the expiration of unemployment benefits caused 100,000 people to lose their benefits immediately and about 400,000 people within one to two weeks. About 500,000 jobless people would lose their health-insurance subsidies under the Cobra program over the course of a month.

The bill blocked by Mr. Bunning also would have halted steep cuts in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients. The logjam leaves doctors with a 21% reduction in those payments. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has asked health-care providers to hold their claims for 10 days, in hopes that the Senate will rescind the payment cuts by then.

The bill would have extended the Highway Trust Fund, whose expiration caused the U.S. Department of Transportation Monday to furlough nearly 2,000 employees without pay. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials said states are losing more than $153 million a day in federal reimbursements.

Democrats hope to take care of many of these problems by passing the larger bill at the end of the week. This "extender" bill, which the Senate took up Monday, not only would extend unemployment benefits, the Cobra health program and Medicare doctors' payments, but would also prolong expiring tax breaks such as the research-and-development tax credit. It would shore up pensions and provide $25 billion to help states make Medicaid payments.

For now, Democrats appeared to relish the fight, because it plays into a broader narrative the party has constructed that paints the GOP as the main cause of Washington's gridlock.

"Because of the games of Washington, hundreds of thousands of people are without the benefits they need as they continue to look for work," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Mr. Bunning, 78 years old, is known on Capitol Hill as a gruff, sometimes irascible figure. A Hall of Fame pitcher, Mr. Bunning has a chilly relationship with Republican leaders over the perception they sought to prevent him from seeking re-election this year. He announced his planned retirement from the Senate several months ago.

He was the sole senator to vote against President George W. Bush's appointment of Ben Bernanke in 2006. He accused Henry Paulson of acting like the "minister of finance in China" for taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Lawmakers from both parties are mindful of the government shutdown in 1995, which was part of a showdown between then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R., Ga.). The public largely blamed Mr. Gingrich and the Republicans, and the episode marked the beginning of a resurgence in Mr. Clinton's popularity.

—Janet Adamy, Laura Meckler and Sara Murray contributed to this article.
Write to Naftali Bendavid at naftali.bendavid@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... atsNewsTop

Jim Bunning has been one of our strongest voices in the senate for law and order and no amnesty. He actually read the releases from W that I sent to him and carried the words to the Senate floor. Why are you posting this highlighted character assassination crap Alipac hero? What's next an article of Nappy putting Jim on the terrorist watch for opposing the deficit? Sheeeesh


Why Americans Hate Washington
By Debra Saunders
March 2, 2010

In January, the Senate joined the House in passing "pay-as-you-go" rules to require Congress to pay for new discretionary spending. On Feb. 12, President Obama signed the bill. "Now Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else," Obama crowed. Less than a month later, Obama and fellow Democrats are busily demonizing a lone senator for pushing Washington to spend responsibly. It seems this administration is all for fiscal restraint -- as long as you don't mean it.

The story began last week when Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., blocked Senate passage of a bill to extend one month unemployment and COBRA health insurance benefits, and other spending, because it did not comply with PAYGO. As the Baseball Hall-of-Famer explained, "When 100 senators are for a bill, and we can't find $10 billion to pay for it, there's something the matter, seriously the matter, with this body." For that, he is Satan.

On Sunday, The New York Times ran a story about the Bunning brouhaha without mentioning why Bunning was blocking the bill. A CNN television crawl warned: "Thousands hurt by one senator." Veep Joe Biden lamented the prospect of a single senator filibustering a measure, and wished, as Politico reported, only that the senator would have to explain to the families of the Americans who could lose their benefits "how they're going to get by."

It's a heartbreaking scenario -- but it can be avoided if Capitol Hill leaders either find the $10 billion in a government that spends $3.8 trillion annually or the 60 votes needed to bring the bill to the Senate floor.

A month ago, Democrats were suggesting the Repubs were phony tightwads for not joining them in support of PAYGO. It turns out, PAYGO is the phony. Two weeks after it became law, the Senate passed a $15 billion jobs bill exempt from PAYGO. Now Bunning is not budging. As spokesman Mike Reynard put it, "If everyone's serious about PAYGO, let's act like it."

I used to like the concept, and remember arguing with Brian Riedl of the libertarian- leaning Heritage Foundation. But he was right. As he said Monday, "PAYGO exists as a talking point in order to create the illusion of fiscal responsibility while they're ignoring it. It's designed for TV ads."

And: "The offsets are out there. Congress just has to make a difficult decision for once."

James Horney, director of federal fiscal policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has a different take. The PAYGO rules, he noted, exempt emergency spending. "Right now, adding to the deficit in fact helps the economy, it doesn't hurt," Horney noted. The benefits extension "is temporary and deals with a short-term economic problem." To Horney, in exempting the bill to extend jobless benefits, PAYGO is working as it should.

Horney added, "I would have more sympathy for (Bunning) and others if they applied the same logic to new tax cuts or to extending expiring tax cuts like the estate tax."

Point taken, and it's a good one. But if supporting tax cuts years ago means a lawmaker cannot push for fiscal discipline today, then Washington will never grow up and, as Obama put it, "pay for what it spends."

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/dsaund ... 0302.shtml