Stop the Insanity

Oh! When will it stop?!  Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning rocked Washington last week when he held up legislation to extend unemployment benefits.  Members of both parties were quick to distance  themselves from Bunning's insanity after he actually questioned how the 10 billion dollar proposition would be funded.

Democrats immediately cried foul over Bunning's abuse of struggling, unemployed Americans as Republicans responded with stage whispers of  "pssst! Jim, sit down and be quiet. People are looking.". What praise he did get from his colleagues was along the lines of the comment by Orrin Hatch, "Senator Bunning's making a point" (no kidding). Then there is the whacked out response from the liberal collective; blaming Bush, accusing Bunning of hypocrisy because he voted for a spending bill once upon a time, pointing out that Bunning didn't even vote for "Pay Go". As if the question of how we are going to pay for things needs context.

Apparently no Senator that has previously voted for anything that included deficit spending is allowed to take a stand against increased deficit spending. That doesn't seem to leave us in a great position to get deficit spending under control. I never thought I'd see the day when we would need more hypocrites in Washington. Actually, this might be a good opportunity to clear up some general confusion about just what a hypocrite is. When a Senator calls for increased deficit spending for his own bill while speaking out against it in someone else's, he is a hypocrite. When a Senator, that has previously engaged in deficit spending, speaks out against deficit spending without calling for deficit spending on his own bill he is a reformed deficit spender. Either way, it doesn't require a defense of Jim Bunning to make the case that asking how we're going to come up with the 10 billion clams for unemployment benefits is perfectly reasonable.

Unfortunately, it is becoming more common to see a politician's principles only on his way out of office. It's kind of like a death bed confession for politicians. I have an easier time believing that Bunning is actually opposed to deficit spending since he isn't running for another term, but it doesn't make the whole situation any less surreal. I know it's a stretch, but the unemployment issue seems like it might be related to our economic woes, and there's a gazillion dollars of unspent stimulus money still in the slush fund. It seems reasonable that an extension of employment benefits could be taken out of money that was designated for easing the economic crisis. But why take advantage of an old crisis when you can get a few billion more to spend by creating a new one?

The real crisis revealed by this episode is that it is somehow controversial for a politician to ask how a piece of government spending is going to be paid for.