Jim Bunning Impasse Puts Federal Employees Out Of Work

WASHINGTON — Two thousand federal transportation workers were furloughed without pay on Monday, and the Obama administration said they have a Kentucky senator to blame for it.

Federal reimbursements to states for highway programs will also be halted, the Transportation Department said in a statement late Sunday. The reimbursements amount to about $190 million a day, according to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

The furloughs and freeze on payments were the result of a decision last week by Republican Sen. Jim Bunning to block passage of legislation that would have extended federal highway and transit programs, the department said. Those programs expired at midnight Sunday.

The extension of transportation programs was part of a larger package of government programs that also expired Sunday, including unemployment benefits for about 400,000 Americans.

Bunning objected to the $10 billion measure, saying it would add to the budget deficit. He didn't respond to a request Monday for comment.

The impasse has provided the administration with an opening to excoriate Republicans for allowing popular programs to run out, even if only for a short time.

"As American families are struggling in tough economic times, I am keenly disappointed that political games are putting a stop to important construction projects around the country," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the Senate's second-ranking Republican leader, told "Fox News Sunday" that he expects GOP lawmakers will vote to extend unemployment benefits this week.

The Senate has already passed a separate jobs bill that also contains an extension of unemployment benefits and highway programs. House leaders have said they hope to pass the Senate jobs bill on Tuesday. If that happens, the bill could be signed into law Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, ending the furloughs.

Furloughs will affect employees at the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Research and Innovative Technology Administration.

LaHood said construction workers will be sent home from job sites because federal inspectors must be furloughed.

Among the construction sites where work will be halted: the $36 million replacement of the Humpback Bridge on the George Washington Parkway in Virginia; $15 million in bridge construction and stream rehabilitation in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; and the $8 million resurfacing of the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi.

At the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the furloughs are expected to disrupt safety programs that operate in partnership with states and advocacy groups, including drunken driving, child passenger safety and motorcycle safety programs, the department said. The portions of NHTSA that deal with automobile recalls like the recent Toyota Motor Corp. recalls are not affected.

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On the Net:

Transportation Department: http://www.dot.gov

Comments

[cheeriogirl]

01:48 PM on 03/02/2010

We need to create a law that would protect us from Senators who vote AGAINST the will of the people they are supposed to represent.

[Seattlelite]

11:40 AM on 03/02/2010

This is another attempt of sabotage by the GOP. They see the stimulus package is starting to work this is their way of trying to reverse that course.

[DickyTrik]

10:42 AM on 03/02/2010

my friend from Kentucky is still yammerin' up there. imagine if each senator against a bill took this much time! they will on healthcare!
some trivia on Bunning, a really tall, former athlete: on himself, he used a choked-up grip and a wide stance in order to handle the recoil

[ladyearth]

09:28 AM on 03/02/2010

"Gingrich" verb, meaning to shut down the federal government. Bunning and the obstructionist Republicans are doing a "Gingrich," Remember when Newt Gingrich tried to shut down the federal government? Bunning is doing a Gingrich, my friends. The party of "NO" is Gingriching. The party of "NO" doing a Gingrich certainly shows that the Republicans have no idea who the American people are. Do you hear what the Republicans are saying? If you are unemployed and drawing unemployment benefits, Bunning thinks that you would rather sit home than look for a job. Bunning has absolutely no idea who the American people are. If you or one of your loved ones needs access to health care, the Republicans say "NO!" They don't care about the deficit. They passed the Medicare Advantage plans and the prescription drug benefit WITHOUT a way to pay for it. The Republicans care only for corporate profits and those multi-million dollar CEOs. The Republicans' "Gingriching" is even more sinister this time. The Republicans are in an all out effort to ordain and establish the Corporate States of America, and they will let nothing, including the pain of the American people stand in their way.

[CaliTLC]

10:40 PM on 03/01/2010

He can hardly be more hateful of his fellow Americans.

[GoogleMaster]

09:57 PM on 03/01/2010

Before you folks go all Rogue on poor Jim .. he's got an "explanation". Over at his website.

"because there were some tax extenders in that bill, the Democrat majority stopped the bill from being considered" (so according to Jim, the DEMOCRATS are to blame .. not poor Jim):

He goes on to add, "I'm not filibustering the bill. A filibuster is -- a filibusterer is somebody who talks a long time. I am exercising my right as a senator duly elected from Kentucky to ... blah, blah and blah"

So, I think poor Jim wants all you Bunning-Bashers to head on over to his site and learn the truth.
Or, have a good laugh .. six of one .. .. http://bunning.senate.gov/public/

[TBinNJ]

12:04 PM on 03/02/2010

Exactly. The Repubs are mad that Reid broke up the original $115 billion bill, because that bill contained many giveaways to big business. Reid (smartly, for once) broke it up so those giveaways will have to be voted on independently....making it hard for Republicans to vote for them.

Finally, the Dems are exposing the hypocrisy. Republicans are on the side of big business, yet like to talk populist. I'm amazed they have been able to get away with it for this long.

[polishlogician]

09:09 PM on 03/01/2010

Introduction to Political Math 101:

Unemployment rate was 6.0% in January, 1990.
+
Unemployment rate is 10.4% in January, 2010.
=
Americans have become 4.4% lazier in 20 years.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=unemployment+rate+chart

[hypnotoad72]

09:52 PM on 03/01/2010

That's an inference and a pigheaded, unsubstantiated one at that.

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-to-grassley-were-still-using-h-1bs-no-moral-imperative-to-hire-americans-2009-3

Americans aren't lazy. We're qualified and capable but middle class wages are too much for corporations, despite their getting subsidy (welfare despite being rich), getting tax breaks and tax cuts (while saying 'tax cuts will create jobs!')...

What's wrong with you?

[samhaydenjr]

11:06 PM on 03/01/2010

Calm down hypnotoad72. I know you're upset about Bunning's stance but I think your anger has blinded you. Polishlogician is actually mocking the right-wing view that the unemployed are lazy.

[1murillo]

01:57 AM on 03/02/2010

I agree with samaydenjr. Because these threads can never carry voice inflections, I try to define my comments with "(sarcasm)" when necessary. I try to be more clear for the many readers.

[emma richmond]

08:50 PM on 03/01/2010

Have anyone notice CNN support this kind of Action, from the Republlicans they rather see, people hungry, losing everything and utilities turned off. These people have no compassion for human beings, they think they are entitle to treat people inhuman cruel, because they are poor and middle class there is no reason to treat them like they are not humans, this is very sad, don't blame the Democrats for this like you always do, when they really are the one's who are fighting for they livelyhood, when the one's they are paising is really the one's who are dumping on them. Wake up America and smell the coffee, you put these monsters in the seat, you have nobody to blame but yourself. These Republicans are nothing more then Obstructionist and CNN is Pandering for them, what can you expect of Georgia and Ted Turner, they have cross the line when they start to mess with the Americans Livelyhood. Today we hear them call the Obama Administration and the President Chicago Gangster, maybe they don' have enougt, to deal with these Republicans who are Thieves who steal from they own, they was stealing so hard and didn't know they was stealing from themselves, What a Joke.

[Ifticar2]

08:09 PM on 03/01/2010

Four HP articles about Bunning. He is getting as popular as Palin.

[cheeriogirl]

01:13 PM on 03/02/2010

If it comes to light that Bunning hasn't in fact sired all of his "claimed'" children, he and Palin could potentially end up neck and neck.

[Misremembered 14]

08:08 PM on 03/01/2010

Bunning is absolutely correct on this one folks. If it is a bill that is important to everybody (which it is), then we should figure out a way to pay for it. The simple and most obvious way to pay for it is to cut spending in other areas of government which are not as critical. It's called fiscal responsiblity. Making sacrifices on certain things to afford others.

[movidan]

08:28 PM on 03/01/2010

Sen. Bunning had no problem borrowing money for the Iraq war, nor with extending the "Bush Tax Cuts" which greatly increased the deficit (he voted in favor of both according to the Washington Post). Since his objection is not to spending money he doesn't have, one must wonder why he continues to block said vote.

Either he's taking the hit as the point man for the "party of no", or he's simply a hypocrite.

[Policon]

08:33 PM on 03/01/2010

So you would rather have us continue the same mistakes we committed under Bush simply because it might be "hypocritical?" Appearently you had a problem with Bush doing it, but now Obama, which makes you no different than the Senator that you are criticizing.

[hypnotoad72]

09:54 PM on 03/01/2010

Tell that to Bush and Reagan... and Cheney since he said "Reagan proved deficits don't matter".

So maybe they don't, if republicans are supposedly right on everything.

It works for them, so why not the rest of us?

[Nonpartay]

07:43 PM on 03/01/2010

My question is, with Jim Bunning making it so 2,000 federal transportation workers are not working today, 400,000 have lost their unemployment insurance today (and 1.1 million will lose their unemployment this month, 2.7 million by April and 5 million by June if nothing is done), flood insurance is not paid for now, the doc fix expired today and the reimbursement rate for doctors has gone down by 21.2% so doctors will no longer see people with Medicare, and small business loan guarantees that were in this bill are no longer in place, why does Bunning still have a job?

[hypnotoad72]

09:55 PM on 03/01/2010

Because, unlike those 2000 workers, he isn't lazy.

:rollseyes: (some repubs think those people are lazy... Don't ask me what I think of them and their simple-mindedness.)

[Nonpartay]

10:32 PM on 03/01/2010

It is pathetic that a lot of Republicans think that if you work for the government, you must be lazy. I wonder where they get that idea. Sounds like one of those Reagan sound bites to me.

[cheeriogirl]

01:15 PM on 03/02/2010

Why do we have no say in firing our Senators, especially this clown right now, for insubordination to the very people who HIRED him.?

[eilish]

07:43 PM on 03/01/2010

I'm sure it's been said many times, but a government in which one man can do all this in opposition to a majority is in serious trouble.

[TBinNJ]

12:01 PM on 03/02/2010

Can someone explain how this is allowed to happen? Can he hold this up indefinitely?

[ed1946]

07:38 PM on 03/01/2010

Bunning is a P***K.Old fools running are country.Throw them all out of offfice.

[AnnC0725]

07:25 PM on 03/01/2010

Federal workers..they get pensions, great health benefits..and you feel sorry for them? Hey, if the dems feel so bad why not use stimulous money instead of creating more debt. That's hgow dumb they are.

[babyboomerorig]

07:36 PM on 03/01/2010

And right now, no pay check. That means no money put into pensions, health benefits are good.

Is your roadway or bridge one that's not being worked on? If so, don't whine when you can't take it or cross it.

[cheeriogirl]

01:17 PM on 03/02/2010

Yet Bunning is willing to vote for these very proposals on a permanent basis.

Even you can't try and spin that one Annie.

[StewartG]

07:24 PM on 03/01/2010

Bunning is right- Why can't the money come from the HALF of the stimulus bill that remains unspent?

Also, ya'll can gang up on Bunning, but it was Harry Reid who cut the $87 Billion "Jobs Bill" last week....if you remember....

[cheeriogirl]

01:30 PM on 03/02/2010

Harry cut out the tax cuts for the big businesses Stewart. This is payback, because Republicans want ALL tax and financial relief to go to big business.

As for the American people, let them eat... cake? Nah, Bunning and his GOP cohorts fully enjoy the Republican "sport" of watching our citizens implode, as we suffer with unemployment, lack of affordable health care and deepening poverty.

Are the Republican Senators worried what might happen to themselves and their families? Why should they? Each of them receives MILLIONS and MILLIONS of dollars from the big business lobbyists to vote AGAINST what WE THE PEOPLE want and need.

And they have the nerve to call themselves compassionate conservatives. I tend to think of them as a group of pathological liars, who want ONLY for themselves, and NOT their fellow citizens.

[Mover]

02:21 PM on 03/04/2010

"because Republicans want ALL tax and financial relief to go to big business"

Where do you get this stuff?

Every time taxes are increased on anyone or any company, you and I pay for it. The customer always pay for it. Businesses merely tack to new higher cost of doing business to the products they sell. You would like an iPod touch 32? Sure, that will be $270.00. After the congress adds more taxes to it, you can pay over $300.00 for the same product.

Yeah increasing taxes on business is a good thing..... not.