Democrats point out that Bunning voted against Pay-Go but used it as his excuse to block legislation. He Republicans thought he was taking a stand to keep Congress at it’s word. Here I was just giving Pelosi and Reid a hard time for flip-flops on reconciliation. Seems that Politician and Hypocrisy are synonymous. Jeri Thompson writes:
Sen. Jim Bunning cut a deal with Democrats to release the hold he had blocking a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits and subsidized COBRA health insurance. But the impact of his stand against more deficit spending will hang over Washington for some time. When he said on the floor Tuesday night that, “If we cannot pay for a bill that all 100 senators support, how can we tell the American people with a straight face that we will ever pay for anything? That is what senators say they want, and that is what the American people want.” Bunning get heat from Democrat majority for wanting to follow Pay-Go My guess is that some of those Republicans up on Capitol Hill flashed back to the beating that Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took for shutting down Washington back in the mid-1990s budget battle. They were focused — as they all too often are — on Washington’s echo and perception chambers. In this case, that was a mistake.
