GOP Senator Stiffs Jobless Americans
March 1, 2010
Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) began his work life as a major league pitcher and once had the second-highest total of career strikeouts in the league’s history. But on Feb. 26, Bunning, 79, scored what could end up as his most memorable and infamous strikeout when he single-handedly and callously blocked the Senate from extending unemployment benefits for 30 days for over 1 million American workers.
Bunning based his refusal to join a nearly unanimous, bipartisan effort to extend unemployment benefits and COBRA health coverage on the need to reduce the federal deficit. He said that money for the extensions that were due to expire on Feb 28 should come out of stimulus funds.
Bunning’s obstructionism gets worse. As debate over the extensions headed toward midnight on Feb. 26, he complained that he was missing the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball game that started at 9 p.m.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) asked Bunning to drop his opposition. Politico reports Bunning replied: “Tough [sh_t].”
The extensions are expected to be approved despite Bunning’s opposition. But the Huffington Post reports that—according to the National Employment Law Project—state governments, including Kentucky’s, will be forced to spend more money than they would have on the benefit extensions because of Bunning’s opposition. The delay in passage means that recipients will be notified that they are not eligible for federal benefits next month, forcing the states to pick up the slack.
Judy Conti, a lobbyist for NELP told Huffington Post, “What happened last night was an absolute disgrace. There is a time and a place and 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.”
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