Jim Bunning and the mysterious filibuster.
Kentucky's Republican Senator Jim Bunning has dominated headlines in the past few days due to his seemingly incomprehensible and flat out evil "filibuster" of a 10 billion dollar unemployment package. As reported by CNN just two days ago, Bunning is being blamed for filibustering H.R. 4691 and has in the process drawn ire from not only Democrats, but fellow Republicans. Most puzzling is the reporting of the story as if Bunning performed some horrendous act for which he now must be crucified for. CNN is not the only culprit as virtually every major news media spun this story as Jim 'the Scrooge' Bunning blocking unemployment benefits from being paid out. Not true, he has nothing against unemployment benefits, he simply refused to provide unanimous consent for a bill that has absolutely no financing mechanism. That is all.
From a geeky political perspective this is hardly a filibuster as the bill was never brought up for debate, but was simply shoved through the Senate with the hopes that everyone would just play nice and pass it through. Given our dire financial situation, Bunning figured that determining where these 10 billion would come from would be a good idea, but instead he got turned into a monster. Just today, I was watching CNN and a woman called in complaining that Congress is broken and that one man should not have the power to "hurt" millions of people. How is that for honest reporting?
Republicans if they were honest should have rallied behind Bunning and demanded that these 10 billion dollars are accounted for instead of simply borrowing. Mind you just several weeks ago Democrats barely got the debt ceiling raised by an additional 1.9 trillion and yet are continuing to borrow. In the off chance someone with enough guts calls them out on it, like Bunning did, he becomes vilified and turned into a scapegoat for angry Americans.
Although Bunning finally caved in, this incident serves as a stark reminder that nobody in Congress is serious about our financial plight and our growing deficit. It would be quite trivial in my humble opinion to match this spending with dollar for dollar spending cuts, yet our ruling classes are content with dispensing freebies and posturing in front of their constituency. What kind of seismic economic shift do we need in order for people to understand the gravity of the situation?
From a geeky political perspective this is hardly a filibuster as the bill was never brought up for debate, but was simply shoved through the Senate with the hopes that everyone would just play nice and pass it through. Given our dire financial situation, Bunning figured that determining where these 10 billion would come from would be a good idea, but instead he got turned into a monster. Just today, I was watching CNN and a woman called in complaining that Congress is broken and that one man should not have the power to "hurt" millions of people. How is that for honest reporting?
Republicans if they were honest should have rallied behind Bunning and demanded that these 10 billion dollars are accounted for instead of simply borrowing. Mind you just several weeks ago Democrats barely got the debt ceiling raised by an additional 1.9 trillion and yet are continuing to borrow. In the off chance someone with enough guts calls them out on it, like Bunning did, he becomes vilified and turned into a scapegoat for angry Americans.
Although Bunning finally caved in, this incident serves as a stark reminder that nobody in Congress is serious about our financial plight and our growing deficit. It would be quite trivial in my humble opinion to match this spending with dollar for dollar spending cuts, yet our ruling classes are content with dispensing freebies and posturing in front of their constituency. What kind of seismic economic shift do we need in order for people to understand the gravity of the situation?
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