He, alone, has stood up to one more spending bill that normally would fly through on greased skids, an 'emergency' extension of federal unemployment benefits. If something is an 'emergency', then Congress gets to toss any consideration of budgetary restraints out the window. You know, it isn't like the entire universe doesn't know that unemployment is north of 10%, and has been for some time.
The Chilean earthquake in an emergency. This bill isn't.
He doesn't object to extending unemployment benefits. He just wants it paid for with money already budgeted. Therefore, he objects. And the bill stops dead in its tracks. He gets to do that. He's a Senator, just like all the other Senators who get to do that.
To hear the responses from the White House, Harry Reid, and even his own colleagues, you would think this guy was Attilla the Hun, eager to starve little children. Why, how DARE he object!
As one wry observer notes:
This is how Senators think. You see, the way the Senate works is that the powers-that-be package a whole host of big spending or nefarious policy into a bill that is wrapped in a bow of something like “unemployment insurance” or has some title that no one could possibly object to, and then you ask unanimous consent to call it up and pass it. No debate. No discussion. Just waltz on down to the Senate floor and ask consent - and when a Senator says, “hmmm… I dunno, perhaps we should have some debate about spending another 10 or 20 billion dollars every 30 days, and perhaps at least think about a way to pay for this stuff,” he is excoriated for “hating” people and left out to dry by friend and foe alike because no one has the damn nerve to stand up and say, “you know what, you’re right.” Instead, business-as-usual in the Senate is to talk about “my friend” from wherever, and to let federal spending balloon out of control while you laugh in the cloakroom or run to catch your flight to another junket somewhere.
Business as usual has got to stop. Someone has to take the arrows, and Senator Bunning has decided to do just that. He led the charge to defeat the Bernanke re-appointment, and had some steaming-hot choice words for the Chairman during hearings. Like, 'failure'. As in, 'You are a failure!' Stuff PeopleInChargeOfSuchThings never hear, 'cuz they're way too insulated from any effect of any decision they make.
Helicopter Ben kept his job, but the thirty 'no' votes did ring loud in his ears, and a lot of senators who voted 'yes' gonna have a lot of 'splainin' to do, Lucy. OS received a 'let me 'splain' email from Bob Corker yesterday, long after his vote was cast. He thinks people have short memories, that they care more about curling and Jay Leno. His lily-white is in for a shock, OS predicts.
Bunning, however, is of a different stripe. He had a life before the Senate, totally removed from political life.
He had a real career, as a very distinguished Major League Baseball pitcher, between 1955 and 1971.
Won 224, Lost 184, a .549 winning percentage. An earned run average of 3.27 per game over seventeen years in the majors, during an era when giants ruled the land, like Mantle, Maris, Aaron, Koufax, the list goes on and on. Before free agency ballooned salaries. Before steroids and multi-million dollar endorsement deals and no-cut contracts. In the mid-60's he allowed fewer than three runs per game for four consecutive years.
Baseball, for those who don't follow it, is a tough, unforgiving sport. Every pitch, every part of every play is charted by the statisticians, and enters the permanent lexicon of the game for all to see. There is nowhere to hide for anyone who plays the game. The tiniest misjudgment at the wrong moment can cost a team, and its city, an otherwise successful season. Likewise, an heroic performance at the right moment can turn the tide in a grueling 160+ game season.
He knows what it means to get the job done with thousands of people heckling him in the hot summer sun, hoping he fails. He ain't skeered of Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer...
He retires from the Senate this year.
With honor. Just like he did from baseball.
