Obstructionism the Bunning Way

You know it's bad when the "Party of No" gets all squirmy about one of their own, a fellow-Republican, demonstrating just why the label. Senator Jim Bunning from Kentucky flustered even his partisan peers by digging in his heels to not let pass emergency legislation extending unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless still out of work.

Of course, he ultimately caved and at the end of the day (literally) the Senate passed the measure ready to send on to the president for signing into law. But the inconstancy, not to mention the thoughtlessness, of Bunning's one-man filibuster that delayed getting it there is certainly notable.

Such a poser, acting suddenly all fiscally responsible, going on insisting that the extended unemployment pay must be paid for rather than added to the deficit. "If we cannot pay for a bill that all 100 senators support, how can we tell the American people with a straight face that we will ever pay for anything?" he said.

He says he's not opposed to extending the benefits, he only wants to make sure they're paid for, just playing by the PAYGO rules. Even though he opted against that last January, of course, conjointly every other Republican in the Senate voting, true to form, "No".

His pretended out-of-the-blue budgetary conversion might have been better played last year, when he voted in favor of a spending bill paying for dragged out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We couldn't pay for that either, nor the Bush tax cuts and any number of other projects that added to the deficit, all which Bunning voted for.

Never minding all that, comes along this and an opportunity seized for him to chide the Democrats for PAYGO, however irrational, "I believe we should pay for it... We have run up $5 trillion in debt. There has to be a time to stop that."

As far as I can tell, he's just being a prick, and inarguably wins him the spot of poster child for Republican obstructionism. Throwing a conniption fit for no reason other than pure spite toward the Democrats, threatening to withhold benefits without the least consideration whatsoever for millions unemployed in these worst economic times, that just plain ain't cool.

But, hey, despite everything the bill and its provisions were pushed through, which in the words of one senator "is hopeful news for our most needy families... By approving this legislation we will help those folks who are currently without work continue to make ends meet until they can find new employment."

[Disclosure: I should probably confess, I took that last statement out of its original context, my bad. It just seemed so appropriate for the story that I threw it in there. In my defense, those were indeed words from a senator, on the passing of a similar bill, only a different one is all. That senator was Jim Bunning, go figure.]