Yesterday, Senator Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky) blocked the $10 billion Senate bill that would have granted an emergency extension to unemployment benefits across the country. Politico reports that Bunning's move "has united Democrats and sent Republicans hiding from the political backlash." Senator Charles Schumer chided Bunning, "I've gone around the state and met with New Yorkers who had the same jobs for years and years, but lost it and can't find work no matter how hard they look. It is unfair and almost inhumane to cut these fine people off from their benefits."
Bunning's objection is that the money should come from unused (so far) stimulus money. But, the NY Times explained, "Democrats balked, saying that Republicans had not been concerned about requiring Bush administration initiatives to be paid for and that the unemployment aid amounted to an emergency." Bunning's block means that 100,000 people lost their unemployment benefits immediately and another 400,000 will lose them within the next 1-2 weeks.
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank writes that Bunning "has been on a one-man campaign to cut off unemployment benefits, kick the unemployed off of health insurance, cut Medicare payments to doctors, deny satellite TV to rural Americans, shut down federal flood insurance and highway projects, and furlough thousands of federal workers." (Republicans Senators of states where furloughs would take place did not comment about Bunning's decision.) And the retiring Senator was pretty unhappy when ABC News and CNN tried to get him to comment—he allegedly flipped the bird at them. Some video of the exchange:
