If you’ve been paying attention to news reports the past couple days, you have likely heard something to this effect: Jim Bunning is the most evil, stubborn, merciless, and hateful man in the Senate. Why? Senator Bunning is blocking legislation that would extend unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies.
The argument against Bunning is this: People are struggling. They need help. Now is not the time to take their benefits away.
In reality, Senator Bunning is taking a sorely needed and long overdue stand against fiscal irresponsibility on the part of our government officials.
Bunning noted that he was not against this legislation. But he argued that if the Senate wants to pass it, they need to find the $10 billion to pay for it first.
What a novel concept! Kind of like a “pay as you go” system.
Wait a minute — Didn’t Congress just pass this sort of “pay as you go” requirement? Yes they did. The President signed it into law just a couple weeks ago. And now the Democrats in Congress want to break the law they just passed and their President just signed on the first bill through the Senate since the PAYGO legislation was signed into law!
Senator Bunning could have let this pass quietly and allowed the Democrats to continue their charade. But now, by blocking this legislation on the basis of the PAYGO legislation the President just signed, Bunning has shown the Democrats in Congress to be frauds when it comes to fiscal responsibility. Yes, they can act like they want to control spending. They can talk a good game in trying to fool the American people. But their actions demonstrate their addiction to spending the taxpayers’ money.
One important fact to remember about this is that Senator Bunning was not opposing this legislation to extend these benefits outright, he was only opposing the unfunded spending. He suggested using some of the unpaid stimulus money, but Senator Reid shot down that idea. They could have used that money to pay for it, but they refused. If the Democrats were really concerned with helping these people who stand to lose their unemployment benefits, they could use that money. Senator Bunning was simply stopping them from spending more money they don’t have.
The truth is that our government has been spending money it doesn’t have for far too long. There are too many programs, too many entitlements, that are passed without a way to pay for them. It’s time for more of our elected officials to follow Senator Bunning’s lead.
Our leaders need to exercise far more restraint when it comes to the use of our money. As it stands now, they are no longer spending our money. They have run out. Now they’re spending the money of our children and grandchildren. It’s time we held them accountable. Instead of railing against Senator Bunning, we need to be opposing the spend-happy members of Congress.
