Bunning’s strike out

Everyone sat on edge while millions waited to hear if they would be able to continue buying groceries, paying rent and bills, and, well, living the modest lives they’ve been reduced to after losing their jobs.

Federal employees nervously contemplated the possibility of reduced salaries due to furloughs and layoffs. Doctors wondered anxiously if they would be receiving their Medicare payments. Highway workers scrambled to make ends meet as they faced the possibility of not receiving their paychecks.

State agencies were keeping busy sending out letters to inform unemployment insurance recipients that they’d be ineligible for Emergency Unemployment Compensation.  For literally millions of Americans, things were looking extremely bleak.

Most of the United States supported them, but one man, a single man representing approximately one percent of Americans, boldly stood in the way of their needs, all in the name of ... pay-go?

For five days, in the name of the pay-as-you-go philosophy, retiring Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., antagonized Democrats and “held his fellow Republicans hostage,” as the Washington Post put it, as he single-handedly blocked a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits, Medicare payments to doctors, satellite TV to rural Americans and paychecks to highway workers.

Finally, on Tuesday night, he gave way and dropped his objection after forcing about 2,000 federal employees into furloughs and imperiling jobless benefits for millions. After Bunning stepped down, the bipartisan bill passed 78-19.

The reasons for toying with desperate Americans’ much-needed benefits? He was demanding that Democrats find a way to pay for the bill so that it wouldn’t add to the deficit.

Of course, his state’s newspaper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, saw things somewhat differently, writing, “As long as Republicans were in charge, Sen. Jim Bunning was OK with trading a surplus for a deficit. He voted to put two wars, tax cuts and a Medicare drug benefit on the nation’s credit card. Now that Republicans are no longer in charge, Bunning is drawing the line on deficit spending. He’s doing it in a way that shows callous contempt for the more than one in 10 working Kentuckians whose jobs disappeared in the economic meltdown.”

We couldn’t agree more. Bunning’s self-righteous obstructionism undoubtedly harmed millions of struggling Americans.

And no wonder Republicans are shunning him; Bunning’s blockade revealed the practical implications of Republican obstructionism when taken too far.

For the first time, Republicans have exhibited a real fear of being branded as “the Party of No,” and for good reason. Many refused to back Bunning, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell making very clear that Republicans were trying to end the stalemate. Is the party that’s been in almost lockstep opposition finally beginning to splinter?

Perhaps more importantly, as Congress moves toward more important yet more decisive issues, maybe we should begin to question the democratic qualities of a legislative body that allows a single senator to block the will of the nation.