Bunning's Hypocracy on Paygo

Our retiring Senator Jim Bunning has made a national spectacle of himself the past few days, singlehandedly holding up an emergency extension for unemployment in the Senate, which was also tied to highway, health care, and small business loan funding. Bunning finally relented last night and allowed the stopgap bill to be debated (it passed 78-19).

Bunning's stated rationale was that the bill did not follow paygo, the principle Democrats want reinstated in spending that each spending increase will be paid for in a spending cut or tax increase. Bunning said the 30 day extension would cost $10 billion.

However, as a Senate colleague pointed out in last night's debate, Bunning was unconcerned about paygo during the Bush years when he voted for two unfunded wars and all the deficit spending that W pushed through. If the Republican party wants to avoid the label of the party that hates the poor, Bunning did them no favors.