Unemployment Extension: Going From Unmentioned To Filibuster

Last year America watched and waited while congress hashed out the prospect of whether unemployment benefits would be available past the New Year. It was a cliffhanger because of delay tactics and objections of a few senators. A record of 20 million Americans collected unemployment benefits last year, sat on the edge of their seats, and wondered it they would be out of luck for the holidays, as congress played political games for its captive audience. The whole thing wasted a lot of time and cost Americans money, not to mention the stress factor for everyone involved. But the darn thing finally passed, with only moments to spare.


Since that last unemployment extension, back December, there was almost nothing mentioned on the subject. Most of the talk was centered on health care. As the Democrats worked on throwing together any mush that they thought might stick, the Republicans just said no to everything. Nobody was talking about the unemployment benefits that were about to run out in a couple of months, then. Congress might not have had to think about this subject at all, if they had worked on a bigger band-aid to start with. But no, that would spoil the dramatic affect. The unemployed are literally living at the end of their rope, fighting for the one out of six jobs that available. Millions of Americans are really suffering health and mental health issues like depression and anxiety due to long-term unemployment and surely don’t need the stress of congressional party games.

Now, one senator has mucked up the works again, with his objection. Senator, Jim Bunning, deliberately stopped the clock. With Mr. Bunning’s objection, states will loose money because of stopping and starting of checks. Mr. Bunning stated that he knew the unemployment extension would happen, but he would object and object again anyway. What was the point of this again? Mr. Bunning however, cannot escape the hypocrisy of his actions. As the Democrats, eagerly point out all the other bills he voted yes on, but were for the very rich or for wars, Bunning tried to defend himself by pointing fingers at the other side.

If congress had only started working on this bill in January, maybe all of this could have been averted. With the example of last year’s extension of benefits, the Democrats might have concluded something like this could transpire. Why did the Democrats wait until the last minute? If the Senate had taken this matter up at the beginning of February, it would be done whether Bunning objected or not.

Senator Bunning’s actions are unbelievable, but he is planning to retire, so he doesn’t need our votes. One might wonder though, what his intentions were for doing all of this. Since Mr. Bunning knows that it is only a matter time before the unemployment extension will pass, why put everyone through all of this? Maybe Mr. Bunning decided since he was retiring anyway, he would take a page from Sarah Palin; create media frenzy and write a book.



By Renee Rotto