Bill-blocking senator relents over jobless cash

A Republican senator who had single-handedly blocked a stop-gap measure to extend help for the jobless finally relented under withering assaults from Democrats and dwindling support within his own party.

Jim Bunning had been blocking the $10bn measure, causing layoffs of US government employees and threatening the unemployment benefits of hundreds of thousands of people.

He was seeking to force Democrats to find ways to finance the bill so it would not add to the national budget deficit, but his move sparked a political tempest that subjected Republicans to withering media coverage and cost the party politically.

The bill was brought to a vote early today and quickly passed. It passed the House of Representatives last week and will probably be signed into law immediately by President Barack Obama so that 2,000 laid-off Transportation Department workers can go back to work. They are likely to be awarded back-pay once the programme is revived.

A law that provided stop-gap road funding and longer and more generous unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless expired on Monday. Without the extension, about 200,000 jobless people would have lost government benefits this week alone, according to the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project.

The measure Senator Bunning freed for a vote would extend through the end of March several programmes that had expired, including the jobless aid, highway funding and help for doctors facing reduced payments under Medicare, the US government’s health insurance programme for the elderly.

It would provide a month-long extension of the programmes to give Congress time to pass a year-long solution that is also pending.

Yesterday Bunning objected to a request by Senator Susan Collins, a fellow Republican, to pass a 30-day extension of jobless benefits and other expired measures.

When asked if he was hurting the Republican Party, Senator Collins said, “He’s hurting the American people.”

Senator Bunning had blocked the stop-gap legislation since last Thursday, insisting that Democrats find offsetting revenues or spending cuts to finance the bill.

Instead, he settled for a vote to close a tax loophole enjoyed by paper companies that get a credit from burning “black liquor”, a pulp-making by-product, as if it were an alternative fuel.

Democrats promised to reject the measure, since it would force a delay by requiring the House to act on the bill again.

Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s number two Democrat, said Senator Bunning was accepting an offer that he had rejected for days.

“As a result ... unemployment benefits were cut off for thousands of people across America, assistance for health care was cut off across America, thousands of federal employees were furloughed,” Senator Durbin said.

Frustrated Democrats have been lobbing criticism at Senator Bunning and his fellow Republicans for days. Harry Reid, leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, had implored him to relent and allow a vote.

Senator Reid said Republicans were pressing him for four votes related to the measure and ways to pay for it without increasing the deficit. Senator Bunning wanted to use leftover money from last year’s stimulus measure, among other options.

Senator Reid would grant Senator Bunning only one vote. Democrats did not want to be exposed to potentially difficult votes.

Democrats’ hardball tactics came as they made political gains by attacking Senator Bunning and his fellow Republicans. Major cable news networks carried yesterday’s proceedings live and returned to the topic frequently.

Democrat after Democrat came to the floor to attack Republicans for blocking the legislation.

Meanwhile, Senator Reid has called up a €73.7bn-plus measure to provide a longer-term extension of unemployment benefits that would last through the end of the year, along with a full-year extension of higher Medicare payments to doctors, help for states with their Medicaid budgets and continuing a variety of expired tax breaks for individuals and businesses.