Once a source of national leaders of both political parties, New York state has descended into a bizarre, riveting spectacle of corruption and political debasement, with its governor facing calls to resign as well as new charges of accepting illicit perks and lying under oath, the dean of its congressional delegation giving up his gavel over corruption charges and another House member announcing he won’t run again amid allegations of sexual harassment.
And that was just yesterday.
The latest, dizzying episodes of political disgrace in New York follow a half-decade of disaster during which three top state politicians were forced out amid allegations of everything from large-scale theft to small-scale sexual indiscretions.
And while Republican leaders have drawn their share of blame (and indictments), New York is now effectively a one-party state. Its current scandals attach themselves to the dominant Democrats, and the riveting soap opera is feeding a narrative of corruption that threatens to deepen the party’s national woes and distract from the White House’s attempt to refocus the country on health care. And it also hastens a decades-long diminution of the state’s 20th-century pre-eminence, a rise powered by the reform-driven Roosevelt presidencies.
Still, all of the scandals help to keep the public’s mind off of the flat, moribund economies of both New York City and New York State. The American left’s goal is transform America into a version of post-World War II Europe, and the parentheses states of New York and California (as Tom Wolfe once dubbed them) are perfect examples of how all of that is playing out. Article written By Ed Driscoll.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Coffee Party "Founder Is A Obama Supporter"
Billed as an alternative grassroots movement to the Tea Party, which has been for the most part absorbed by mainline Republicans and Neoconservatives, the “Coffee Party” promised to wake up politically minded Americans and offered a different avenue for the freedom movement.
However, the so called founder of the Coffee Party has been quickly exposed as an Obama campaign operative, whose caffeine concept was purely designed to undermine and co-opt the Tea Party ideology.
Described as “a documentary filmmaker who lives outside Washington”, Annabel Park has amassed some 40,000 members via a Facebook page.
“We’re not the opposite of the Tea Party,” Ms. Park, 41, told the New York Times. “We’re a different model of civic participation, but in the end we may want some of the same things.”
“We need to roll up our sleeves, put our heads together and work it out,” she said. “That’s, to me, an American way of doing this.”
The slogan is “Wake Up and Stand Up.” The mission statement declares that the federal government is “not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges we face as Americans.”
At first glance this sounds like attractive stuff to concerned Americans who are sick and tired of big government ruling over their lives. However, a quick background search on Miss Park reveals her real intentions.
Park campaigned for Obama in 2008 and was one of the organizers and operators of the influential United for Obama video channel at YouTube.
“I found that people have little understanding of the change that Senator Barack Obama is advocating. I thought from my experience in using videos for civil movements that videos would be the best way to promote the need for change and for Obama. That’s why I decided to work for the Obama campaign,” Annabel Park said.
She made over twenty promotional videos for the Obama campaign that drew tens of thousands of views.
However, the so called founder of the Coffee Party has been quickly exposed as an Obama campaign operative, whose caffeine concept was purely designed to undermine and co-opt the Tea Party ideology.
Described as “a documentary filmmaker who lives outside Washington”, Annabel Park has amassed some 40,000 members via a Facebook page.
“We’re not the opposite of the Tea Party,” Ms. Park, 41, told the New York Times. “We’re a different model of civic participation, but in the end we may want some of the same things.”
“We need to roll up our sleeves, put our heads together and work it out,” she said. “That’s, to me, an American way of doing this.”
The slogan is “Wake Up and Stand Up.” The mission statement declares that the federal government is “not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges we face as Americans.”
At first glance this sounds like attractive stuff to concerned Americans who are sick and tired of big government ruling over their lives. However, a quick background search on Miss Park reveals her real intentions.
Park campaigned for Obama in 2008 and was one of the organizers and operators of the influential United for Obama video channel at YouTube.
“I found that people have little understanding of the change that Senator Barack Obama is advocating. I thought from my experience in using videos for civil movements that videos would be the best way to promote the need for change and for Obama. That’s why I decided to work for the Obama campaign,” Annabel Park said.
She made over twenty promotional videos for the Obama campaign that drew tens of thousands of views.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tavis Smiley And Rev. Al Sharpton Rift Over President Obama Black Agenda
I knew the long-simmering debate among blacks over what President Barack Obama should be doing for blacks — his strongest backers and the Democratic Party's most loyal constituency — would heat up. It turned red hot last week when a war of words broke out on Tom Joyner's nationally syndicated radio show between two of this country's leading black activists. In dueling appearances on Joyner's program, Tavis Smiley and the Rev. Al Sharpton went after each other in a way that would make would make Quentin Tarantino blush.
"Some of us who call ourselves black leaders are making the wrong choice. The president doesn't need a black agenda, they sing. He's not the president of black America. He's the president of all America, and he need not focus specifically on the unique challenges black America is facing," Smiley said of Sharpton and several other civil rights leaders who met with Obama to discuss the jobs bill that was being considered by Congress.
Sharpton disputed Smiley's characterization of that meeting. He said he met with Obama to deal with unemployment and its lopsided impact on blacks. "We did not ask for a race bill because we did not think it would pass. We asked for a 'place bill,' where the jobs would go to where the people were most impacted," he said. Then Sharpton lobbed this brickbat: "When they were running around buck dancing for Bill Clinton they didn't ask for a black agenda," he said in a slap at Smiley, whom he accused of being a sycophant of the former president.
This is a senseless fight. Most black leaders, including Smiley, don't expect Obama to behave like Putney Swope (the black character in a film by the same name who takes control of a white-run advertising agency and imposes his black agenda on the firm).
They don't want him to act like some fear a consciously black president might. They don't expect loud pronouncements from Obama about what his administration is doing for blacks. But they also don't want him to be insensitive to problems that have a disparate impact on black people. What they do want is a go-to person on his staff to address their concerns.
Of course, Obama isn't the president of any one group of Americans. But to offer that as a reason for not focusing on the high black unemployment rate when his administration has made a targeted effort to address the concerns gays and lesbians have about the military's "don't ask, don't tell," seems like a policy that penalizes blacks for being black.
Obama has to act before the divisions harden between his black supporters and detractors. The infighting among these activists will only intensify if he doesn't find a way to salve the wounds of those who think he courted black voters during his presidential campaign and then abandoned them once he got into the Oval Office.
This is something he needs to do soon — before his political base implodes.
"Some of us who call ourselves black leaders are making the wrong choice. The president doesn't need a black agenda, they sing. He's not the president of black America. He's the president of all America, and he need not focus specifically on the unique challenges black America is facing," Smiley said of Sharpton and several other civil rights leaders who met with Obama to discuss the jobs bill that was being considered by Congress.
Sharpton disputed Smiley's characterization of that meeting. He said he met with Obama to deal with unemployment and its lopsided impact on blacks. "We did not ask for a race bill because we did not think it would pass. We asked for a 'place bill,' where the jobs would go to where the people were most impacted," he said. Then Sharpton lobbed this brickbat: "When they were running around buck dancing for Bill Clinton they didn't ask for a black agenda," he said in a slap at Smiley, whom he accused of being a sycophant of the former president.
This is a senseless fight. Most black leaders, including Smiley, don't expect Obama to behave like Putney Swope (the black character in a film by the same name who takes control of a white-run advertising agency and imposes his black agenda on the firm).
They don't want him to act like some fear a consciously black president might. They don't expect loud pronouncements from Obama about what his administration is doing for blacks. But they also don't want him to be insensitive to problems that have a disparate impact on black people. What they do want is a go-to person on his staff to address their concerns.
Of course, Obama isn't the president of any one group of Americans. But to offer that as a reason for not focusing on the high black unemployment rate when his administration has made a targeted effort to address the concerns gays and lesbians have about the military's "don't ask, don't tell," seems like a policy that penalizes blacks for being black.
Obama has to act before the divisions harden between his black supporters and detractors. The infighting among these activists will only intensify if he doesn't find a way to salve the wounds of those who think he courted black voters during his presidential campaign and then abandoned them once he got into the Oval Office.
This is something he needs to do soon — before his political base implodes.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Commerical Real Estate: The Next Financial Crisis
“Between 2010 and 2014, about $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans will reach the end of their terms. Nearly half are at present “underwater” – that is, the borrower owes more than the underlying property is currently worth. Commercial property values have fallen more than 40 percent since the beginning of 2007. Increased vacancy rates, which now range from eight percent for multifamily housing to 18 percent for office buildings, and falling rents, which have declined 40 percent for office space and 33 percent for retail space, have exerted a powerful downward pressure on the value of commercial properties.
“The largest commercial real estate loan losses are projected for 2011 and beyond; losses at banks alone could range as high as $200-$300 billion. The stress tests conducted last year for 19 major financial institutions examined their capital reserves only through the end of 2010. Even more significantly, small and mid-sized banks were never subjected to any exercise comparable to the stress tests, despite the fact that small and mid-sized banks are proportionately even more exposed than their larger counterparts to commercial real estate loan losses.”
We have extracted these two paragraphs from the executive summary of the February 10, 2010, Congressional Oversight Panel’s Special Report entitled “Commercial Real Estate Losses and the Risk to Financial Stability.” This 190-page document is packed with vital and detailed information. Find it at: http://cop.senate.gov/documents/cop-021110-report.pdf .
The issue of CRE is on everyone’s mind. And, unlike residential housing, there is no political will in Washington to subsidize a mall developer or office landlord. That is a good thing. In the longer run the CRE adjustment will be faster and less costly to the American taxpayer than the protracted demise of the Fannie and Freddie.
At Cumberland, we expect the forthcoming losses on CRE debt to be large and continuing. Essentially the United States is re-pricing its commercial real estate sector with debt-driven deflationary forces.
CRE is another of the several reasons the Federal Reserve will remain committed to its very low interest-rate policy for an “extended period.” In the case of CRE, the Fed does not have the policy of subsidy and support in place that it has for the federal housing finance agencies.
Large-scale federal attempts at subsidy for CRE have failed miserably. That is what we would expect when the government tries to create a mechanism to avoid the reality of taking a loss. The most notorious of those attempts is the PPIP. That monstrosity was designed and released with great fanfare by the Treasury Secretary. Notice how little you hear about it now. Had it advanced, there would have been a $1.1 trillion program with a massive transfer of subsidy from taxpayers to special finance interests.
The Senate report doesn’t mince words about PPIP. It also clearly establishes that PPIP is not likely to have much impact. The section on PPIP starts on page 127. In the spirit of American history it could be nicknamed Geithner’s Folly. The only thing wrong with that metaphor is that Secretary Seward’s purchase of Alaska turned out to be a dramatic success for the US while Secretary Geithner’s PPIP stands no chance of a positive outcome.
Let’s sum this up. Big losses are going to be reported on CRE. Banks have another round of pain ahead of them. The stress test on the 19 large institutions only runs through 2010. It is clear that the nation has not reach a stabilized level with its commercial real estate. It is likely that another round of painful adjustments lies ahead.
We conclude that the falling price level in CRE is a deflationary force in America and will continue to be so for several more years. Debt tied to it is in trouble. Banks will take more losses and bank capital will be tested again. This impact on banks can only be determined on a case-by-case issue.
Meanwhile, this is another reason why the Federal Reserve will continue its very low interest-rate policy for an “extended period.” We believe that means all of this year and most if not all of next year. Our forecast is that the short-term interest rate in the US will be between zero and 1 percent during that period. Add to that the conditions in the rest of the world, and one can make that projection of low interest rates for nearly all of the major economies. Exit strategies may eventually come, but not for an “extended period.”
We look forward to seeing some readers at the Philly Fed conference on March 3. See www.interdependence.org for details. Also, we are scheduled to discuss our market outlook on CNBC’s Power Lunch on Monday, March 1 shortly after the noontime opening. Good weekend wishes to all from the Cumberland Advisors’ Sarasota office.
“The largest commercial real estate loan losses are projected for 2011 and beyond; losses at banks alone could range as high as $200-$300 billion. The stress tests conducted last year for 19 major financial institutions examined their capital reserves only through the end of 2010. Even more significantly, small and mid-sized banks were never subjected to any exercise comparable to the stress tests, despite the fact that small and mid-sized banks are proportionately even more exposed than their larger counterparts to commercial real estate loan losses.”
We have extracted these two paragraphs from the executive summary of the February 10, 2010, Congressional Oversight Panel’s Special Report entitled “Commercial Real Estate Losses and the Risk to Financial Stability.” This 190-page document is packed with vital and detailed information. Find it at: http://cop.senate.gov/documents/cop-021110-report.pdf .
The issue of CRE is on everyone’s mind. And, unlike residential housing, there is no political will in Washington to subsidize a mall developer or office landlord. That is a good thing. In the longer run the CRE adjustment will be faster and less costly to the American taxpayer than the protracted demise of the Fannie and Freddie.
At Cumberland, we expect the forthcoming losses on CRE debt to be large and continuing. Essentially the United States is re-pricing its commercial real estate sector with debt-driven deflationary forces.
CRE is another of the several reasons the Federal Reserve will remain committed to its very low interest-rate policy for an “extended period.” In the case of CRE, the Fed does not have the policy of subsidy and support in place that it has for the federal housing finance agencies.
Large-scale federal attempts at subsidy for CRE have failed miserably. That is what we would expect when the government tries to create a mechanism to avoid the reality of taking a loss. The most notorious of those attempts is the PPIP. That monstrosity was designed and released with great fanfare by the Treasury Secretary. Notice how little you hear about it now. Had it advanced, there would have been a $1.1 trillion program with a massive transfer of subsidy from taxpayers to special finance interests.
The Senate report doesn’t mince words about PPIP. It also clearly establishes that PPIP is not likely to have much impact. The section on PPIP starts on page 127. In the spirit of American history it could be nicknamed Geithner’s Folly. The only thing wrong with that metaphor is that Secretary Seward’s purchase of Alaska turned out to be a dramatic success for the US while Secretary Geithner’s PPIP stands no chance of a positive outcome.
Let’s sum this up. Big losses are going to be reported on CRE. Banks have another round of pain ahead of them. The stress test on the 19 large institutions only runs through 2010. It is clear that the nation has not reach a stabilized level with its commercial real estate. It is likely that another round of painful adjustments lies ahead.
We conclude that the falling price level in CRE is a deflationary force in America and will continue to be so for several more years. Debt tied to it is in trouble. Banks will take more losses and bank capital will be tested again. This impact on banks can only be determined on a case-by-case issue.
Meanwhile, this is another reason why the Federal Reserve will continue its very low interest-rate policy for an “extended period.” We believe that means all of this year and most if not all of next year. Our forecast is that the short-term interest rate in the US will be between zero and 1 percent during that period. Add to that the conditions in the rest of the world, and one can make that projection of low interest rates for nearly all of the major economies. Exit strategies may eventually come, but not for an “extended period.”
We look forward to seeing some readers at the Philly Fed conference on March 3. See www.interdependence.org for details. Also, we are scheduled to discuss our market outlook on CNBC’s Power Lunch on Monday, March 1 shortly after the noontime opening. Good weekend wishes to all from the Cumberland Advisors’ Sarasota office.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Battle For The Middle Class: 20% Underemployment And 38 Million On Food Stamps
For most Americans a jobless recovery is an oxymoron. After all, the vast majority of Americans who pump money into the economy through consuming what they earn, typically find it harder to spend if they don’t have a job to draw an income from. It is understandable that there is a lag between a recession and when companies start to hire. But over the last four decades each subsequent recession seems to add more and more months of so-called jobless recovery. Part of this has to do with the amount of exports we bring in. When spending goes down in the U.S. the actual contraction goes beyond our country and hits many of our trading partners. Yet the middle class in the U.S. has fallen behind both in nominal and inflation adjusted terms for over 40 years. Part of this has to do with the structure of our banking system and our heavy reliance on debt spending. Today, as talk of a recovery permeates the media outlets we have 38,000,000 Americans on food assistance and nearly 20 percent of Americans are registering as underemployed.
Now the Bureau of Labor and Statistics usually measures the above through their U-6 rate. This rate measures those that are working part-time but would like to have a full-time job. There is something psychological about this that makes it seem a lot better than full unemployment but the repercussions on the working class is deep and profound nearly as deep as full unemployment. First, if you are working part-time you have less money to spend and this showed up in the survey clearly:
This is important in understanding that even with a 6 percent growth rate in GDP last quarter that many people still feel this recession deep in their pocketbooks. In addition, that latest GDP number is based on companies cutting their top line item, employees and also inventory restocking. But these are usually one time measures. What we want to be seeing is GDP growth because of additional consumption and growth through hiring. That is the real nature of a healthy expanding economy. Cutting and firing middle class workers isn’t exactly the recipe for a longer-term recovery.
Americans are having to do more with less and are facing new measures of austerity. Many are adapting and many are simply unable to cope with the radical changes taking place. Even in the past decade, many Americans came to rely on credit cards and home equity as some kind of embedded ATM for most households. For over a decade this seemed to be the case. Even many that relied on this deep down realized that something just wasn’t right when home prices kept going up by double-digits while their salaries remained stagnant. Any lack of wage growth was made up by additional borrowing. Banks were willing to lend out this money. But now that the bubble has burst, Americans are filing for bankruptcies in record numbers, losing jobs, and losing their homes through foreclosure. At the same time, the banking industry has kept their practices going thanks to taxpayer bailouts. The middle class is bailing out the same industry that was largely at the center of this financial crisis and their practices still largely remain the same.
This struggle to maintain the middle class is going to be the story of the next decade. But beyond that headline, we now have over 38,000,000 Americans receiving food assistance in this country.
The most prosperous nation in this world has over 12 percent of its population receiving food assistance. It is tough to see fellow Americans in such difficult times. You can see on the chart above how quickly the rate has risen in this recession. Clearly in every recession the rate will go up but in this recession the number has struck many more Americans. In fact, the length of unemployment is a large reason for this as people eat into emergency funds. Beyond that, we now have the largest percentage and number of Americans working part-time in history:
In fact, the large number of underemployed has been a shadow to how deep this crisis really is. For example, the headline unemployment rate nationwide is 9.7 percent. That seems bad but nothing historical. But just look above and add in that underemployment rate. In reality, we can understand why middle class Americans are struggling so much with daily financial life. Think of someone that lost their job and is now working at Wal-Mart as a greeter. Sure they aren’t part of that 9.7 percent but they probably would think so:
“(The Atlantic) Over lunch I spoke with one attendee, Gus Poulos, a Vietnam-era veteran who had begun his career as a refrigeration mechanic before going to night school and becoming an accountant. He is trim and powerfully built, and looks much younger than his 59 years. For seven years, until he was laid off in December 2008, he was a senior financial analyst for a local hospital.
Poulos said that his frustration had built and built over the past year. “You apply for so many jobs and just never hear anything,” he told me. “You’re one of my few interviews. I’m just glad to have an interview with anybody, even a magazine.” Poulos said he was an optimist by nature, and had always believed that with preparation and hard work, he could overcome whatever life threw at him. But sometime in the past year, he’d lost that sense, and at times he felt aimless and adrift. “That’s never been who I am,” he said. “But now, it’s who I am.”
Recently he’d gotten a part-time job as a cashier at Walmart, for $8.50 an hour. “They say, ‘Do you want it?’ And in my head, I thought, ‘No.’ And I raised my hand and said, ‘Yes.’” Poulos and his wife met when they were both working as supermarket cashiers, four decades earlier—it had been one of his first jobs. “Now, here I am again.”
We are in a deep struggle and fight to preserve the middle class of this country. What has made this country strong has been a compact between the government and the citizenship between work and some semblance of financial protection. Yet right now with the banking system in power, it is all about that bottom line and they have no idea what is happening in Main Street USA. They are happy with GDP going up by 6 percent even though this was based on restocking lost supply and firing workers. But how is this really good for the middle class?
Now the Bureau of Labor and Statistics usually measures the above through their U-6 rate. This rate measures those that are working part-time but would like to have a full-time job. There is something psychological about this that makes it seem a lot better than full unemployment but the repercussions on the working class is deep and profound nearly as deep as full unemployment. First, if you are working part-time you have less money to spend and this showed up in the survey clearly:
This is important in understanding that even with a 6 percent growth rate in GDP last quarter that many people still feel this recession deep in their pocketbooks. In addition, that latest GDP number is based on companies cutting their top line item, employees and also inventory restocking. But these are usually one time measures. What we want to be seeing is GDP growth because of additional consumption and growth through hiring. That is the real nature of a healthy expanding economy. Cutting and firing middle class workers isn’t exactly the recipe for a longer-term recovery.
Americans are having to do more with less and are facing new measures of austerity. Many are adapting and many are simply unable to cope with the radical changes taking place. Even in the past decade, many Americans came to rely on credit cards and home equity as some kind of embedded ATM for most households. For over a decade this seemed to be the case. Even many that relied on this deep down realized that something just wasn’t right when home prices kept going up by double-digits while their salaries remained stagnant. Any lack of wage growth was made up by additional borrowing. Banks were willing to lend out this money. But now that the bubble has burst, Americans are filing for bankruptcies in record numbers, losing jobs, and losing their homes through foreclosure. At the same time, the banking industry has kept their practices going thanks to taxpayer bailouts. The middle class is bailing out the same industry that was largely at the center of this financial crisis and their practices still largely remain the same.
This struggle to maintain the middle class is going to be the story of the next decade. But beyond that headline, we now have over 38,000,000 Americans receiving food assistance in this country.
The most prosperous nation in this world has over 12 percent of its population receiving food assistance. It is tough to see fellow Americans in such difficult times. You can see on the chart above how quickly the rate has risen in this recession. Clearly in every recession the rate will go up but in this recession the number has struck many more Americans. In fact, the length of unemployment is a large reason for this as people eat into emergency funds. Beyond that, we now have the largest percentage and number of Americans working part-time in history:
In fact, the large number of underemployed has been a shadow to how deep this crisis really is. For example, the headline unemployment rate nationwide is 9.7 percent. That seems bad but nothing historical. But just look above and add in that underemployment rate. In reality, we can understand why middle class Americans are struggling so much with daily financial life. Think of someone that lost their job and is now working at Wal-Mart as a greeter. Sure they aren’t part of that 9.7 percent but they probably would think so:
“(The Atlantic) Over lunch I spoke with one attendee, Gus Poulos, a Vietnam-era veteran who had begun his career as a refrigeration mechanic before going to night school and becoming an accountant. He is trim and powerfully built, and looks much younger than his 59 years. For seven years, until he was laid off in December 2008, he was a senior financial analyst for a local hospital.
Poulos said that his frustration had built and built over the past year. “You apply for so many jobs and just never hear anything,” he told me. “You’re one of my few interviews. I’m just glad to have an interview with anybody, even a magazine.” Poulos said he was an optimist by nature, and had always believed that with preparation and hard work, he could overcome whatever life threw at him. But sometime in the past year, he’d lost that sense, and at times he felt aimless and adrift. “That’s never been who I am,” he said. “But now, it’s who I am.”
Recently he’d gotten a part-time job as a cashier at Walmart, for $8.50 an hour. “They say, ‘Do you want it?’ And in my head, I thought, ‘No.’ And I raised my hand and said, ‘Yes.’” Poulos and his wife met when they were both working as supermarket cashiers, four decades earlier—it had been one of his first jobs. “Now, here I am again.”
We are in a deep struggle and fight to preserve the middle class of this country. What has made this country strong has been a compact between the government and the citizenship between work and some semblance of financial protection. Yet right now with the banking system in power, it is all about that bottom line and they have no idea what is happening in Main Street USA. They are happy with GDP going up by 6 percent even though this was based on restocking lost supply and firing workers. But how is this really good for the middle class?
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Unemployment Benefits To Expire After Senate Stalemate on Extension
FOXNews.com
Unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits will expire Sunday for millions of voters because the Senate was unable this week to pass a short-term extension, a failure that reflects partly the partisan gridlock that has stalled the Democratic legislative agenda and partly the Senate rules that allows one lawmaker to block legislation.
Unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits will expire Sunday for millions of voters because the Senate was unable this week to pass a short-term extension, a failure that reflects partly the partisan gridlock that has stalled the Democratic legislative agenda and partly the Senate rules that allows one lawmaker to block legislation.
But the Senate will likely be able to renew them with a Tuesday vote. Democrats are expected to take up a broader bill next week, the second in their “jobs agenda” that will extend the benefits, among many other provisions – including popular tax extenders – for one year.
The bill is expected to pass by the end of next week.
The latest stalemate, however, produced a rare, late-night partisan floor brawl between two scrappy senators.
In the red corner is Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., whose decision not to seek re-election this year has made him a wildcard. He has blocked a $10 billion bill that extends the benefits for 30 days because he wants to lay out how the extension will be paid for, preferably with unallocated stimulus funds.
In the blue corner is Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who, along with other Democrats told Bunning no way because the extension is an emergency and shouldn’t come with any offsets.
The battle lasted for hours Thursday when Durbin sought unanimous consent, a move that forced Bunning to object each time to uphold his filibuster.
“It is unthinkable, unforgivable that we would cut off unemployment insurance payments to these people, that we would cut off COBRA payments, which helps them to pay for their health insurance while they’re unemployed,” he said. “And yet, that’s what’s going to happen Sunday night. It’s because the senator from Kentucky has objected to extending unemployment insurance payments and COBRA health insurance payments for 30 days.”
Bunning decried the move and was joined by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who accused Democrats of a “sneak attack.” Corker vowed to stay on the floor with Bunning all night.
Durbin said he was defending out-of-work Americans, that he would love to be home because he is “no spring chicken."
Bunning told Durbin that he would not object if the senator agreed to adopt his or any amendment that would pay for the bill.
But Durbin said Bunning rejected a chance earlier in the week to offer that amendment for an up or down vote.
When Bunning tried to offer an amendment Thursday that would offset the spending, Durbin objected.
“The present level of debt is unsustainable,” Bunning said. “I have too many grandchildren that want to grow up in the same America that I grew up in,” he said.
In the end, it was a draw, although Bunning won the battle.
While Democrats have ganged up on Bunning for his actions, Republicans have blamed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the benefits expiring. Reid had a chance to renew unemployment benefits with the first jobs bill that passed before he decided to dramatically scale back the proposal.
Fox News' Trish Turner contributed to this report.
Unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits will expire Sunday for millions of voters because the Senate was unable this week to pass a short-term extension, a failure that reflects partly the partisan gridlock that has stalled the Democratic legislative agenda and partly the Senate rules that allows one lawmaker to block legislation.
Unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits will expire Sunday for millions of voters because the Senate was unable this week to pass a short-term extension, a failure that reflects partly the partisan gridlock that has stalled the Democratic legislative agenda and partly the Senate rules that allows one lawmaker to block legislation.
But the Senate will likely be able to renew them with a Tuesday vote. Democrats are expected to take up a broader bill next week, the second in their “jobs agenda” that will extend the benefits, among many other provisions – including popular tax extenders – for one year.
The bill is expected to pass by the end of next week.
The latest stalemate, however, produced a rare, late-night partisan floor brawl between two scrappy senators.
In the red corner is Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., whose decision not to seek re-election this year has made him a wildcard. He has blocked a $10 billion bill that extends the benefits for 30 days because he wants to lay out how the extension will be paid for, preferably with unallocated stimulus funds.
In the blue corner is Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who, along with other Democrats told Bunning no way because the extension is an emergency and shouldn’t come with any offsets.
The battle lasted for hours Thursday when Durbin sought unanimous consent, a move that forced Bunning to object each time to uphold his filibuster.
“It is unthinkable, unforgivable that we would cut off unemployment insurance payments to these people, that we would cut off COBRA payments, which helps them to pay for their health insurance while they’re unemployed,” he said. “And yet, that’s what’s going to happen Sunday night. It’s because the senator from Kentucky has objected to extending unemployment insurance payments and COBRA health insurance payments for 30 days.”
Bunning decried the move and was joined by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who accused Democrats of a “sneak attack.” Corker vowed to stay on the floor with Bunning all night.
Durbin said he was defending out-of-work Americans, that he would love to be home because he is “no spring chicken."
Bunning told Durbin that he would not object if the senator agreed to adopt his or any amendment that would pay for the bill.
But Durbin said Bunning rejected a chance earlier in the week to offer that amendment for an up or down vote.
When Bunning tried to offer an amendment Thursday that would offset the spending, Durbin objected.
“The present level of debt is unsustainable,” Bunning said. “I have too many grandchildren that want to grow up in the same America that I grew up in,” he said.
In the end, it was a draw, although Bunning won the battle.
While Democrats have ganged up on Bunning for his actions, Republicans have blamed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the benefits expiring. Reid had a chance to renew unemployment benefits with the first jobs bill that passed before he decided to dramatically scale back the proposal.
Fox News' Trish Turner contributed to this report.
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