Lots of laid off workers are going to lose their unemployment extensions unless a bill is passed. And Bunning is blocking it.......Glad the POS whack-job is leaving office.....But it isn't soon enough.....

Anger grows as Bunning rebuffs even GOP pleas on benefits

Halimah Abdullah and David Lightman - McClatchy Newspapers

Published: 03/02/10



ADDITIONAL DETAILS




WASHINGTON — Politically embattled Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning on Tuesday continued his one-man blockage of legislation designed to keep a host of federal programs — including millions in benefits for unemployed workers — operating.
Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, along with other Republicans, joined Democratic lawmakers in publicly pleading with the retiring Republican senator to release his "hold," which resulted in nearly 2,000 Department of Transportation employees being furloughed without pay Monday, affects jobless benefits for thousands of unemployed workers, rural television customers, doctors receiving Medicare payments and others.
Bunning wants the $10 billion price of extending the programs offset by reductions in spending elsewhere in the budget to not drive up the deficit. The Senate can overcome his objection if 60 of its 100 members vote to do so. So far they haven't, and doing that would take at least four days under Senate rules.
"I would hope that my friend from Kentucky will reconsider," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesdsay on the Senate floor. "You've made your point, you made it well. I understand how you feel that this should be paid for. The majority of the Senate disagrees with you. Let us either vote on that, or withdraw your objection."
Bunning was unmoved.
"I object," he said.
Bunning once again stressed he supports the programs and funding in the measure and criticized Reid and Democrats for not sticking to recently passed PAYGO provisions, which require paying for such programs with readily available funds rather than additional borrowing.
Reid countered that Bunning was scarcely concerned about debt during the Bush administration.
"He wasn't too worried about this during the eight years of the Bush administration, when two wars were unpaid for; all these tax cuts, these 2.5 trillion of dollars," Reid said.
The White House offered a forceful, if exasperated, response.
"This is an emergency situation. This is a situation where, as I said, hundreds of thousands of people are left in the lurch as a result of what happened in our economy," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday. "The Senate has even offered to have a vote on what Senator Bunning wants to do and the person that objected was Senator Bunning.
"I don't know how you negotiate with the irrational," Gibbs said. "I don't know how you prevent one person from deciding that they hold in the palm of their hand the livelihood of hundreds of thousands that have lost their jobs and as a result have lost their health care. What it's simply going to mean is ... more people are simply going to need help. It's an argument that I and others fail to understand."
Among the provisions set to expire are the flood insurance program, Small Business Administration loans, a change in Medicare payments to doctors, some transportation funding and, most prominently, help for the unemployed.
Most people already getting extra jobless benefits are unlikely to be affected. Those who will feel the impact could include people who've exhausted their 26 weeks of state benefits and qualify for more aid under federal guidelines.
Anyone laid off after March 1 no longer would be able to get federal help to pay health insurance premiums; the program now pays 65 percent of the cost for certain workers.
Rural television watchers could be affected because the bill would extend the copyright used by satellite television companies. As many as 2 million families could lose access to local television because a copyright law expired overnight.
Letting the highway program lapse could mean an estimated 90,000 jobs lost.
States hardest hit by the Monday cutoff, according to the National Employment Law Project, a liberal-leaning research group, would be California, where an estimated 201,274 people could lose jobless benefits; and Florida, where the total is an estimated 105,016. Other potential state totals: Georgia, 48,284; Texas, 82,850 and Illinois, 65,431.
Meanwhile, a number of protests both in support of and against Bunning's actions were planned Tuesday in his home state of Kentucky, where 14,000 in Kentucky, would lose federal jobless benefits this month if Congress doesn't extend them, according to the National Employment Law Project.
Bunning's has had a contentious relationship with Republican leadership, especially fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader. Bunning isn't running for a third term, and his decision against seeking re-election brought to a close a months-long saga that pitted the 77-year-old Hall of Fame pitcher against Republican leadership that urged him to step aside for the good of the party.
McConnell has stopped short of publicly wading into the fray. However, during a press conference Tuesday afternoon, he indicated the party is close to resolving the matter.
"I think we're going to be able to work out the short- term extension in the very near future. And we're in the process of working on that now," McConnell said.
(Margaret Talev contributed to this article.)
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