Sen. Bunning Agrees to Allow Vote on Unemployment Extension Bill

republicans don’t care. people need to pay their basic bills to survive. we are talking about people who have worked before but lost their jobs due to the weak economic force… not because they are lazy people. he knows it too. all in the name of selfish politics. this time its going to cost families to suffer directly. how can he sleep at night. he has an opportunity to do the right thing to help millions. instead he squanders that opportunity. too bad.

I have a friend who was terminated from her high paying job about two years ago because she is an alcoholic. Due to a technicality, she won an appeal and was awarded unemployment benefits.
She has been sitting in her apartment for two years with a guy she’s shacked up with. Their daily routine involves several acts of sex, smoking pot and drinking into the early hours of the morning. They prepare sumptuous meals after all the sex and pot. They have been doing this for over two years and will continue as long as their “benefits” continue.

To Jan: Not everyone who truly needs a “hand up” is like that.

My mother, who has held a steady job all her adult life, lost her job and benefits a year ago due to the unstable job market. She has tried unsuccessfully to find a new job from the moment her unemployed feet hit the ground a year ago and the only thing keeping her afloat is her unemployment benefits. My mother is not a slacker, in fact she has taken this horrible situation and turned it into an opportunity to go back to school. However, even though her school fees are covered by grants and loans, she can’t pay her day to day bills without her unemployment. She, like millions of others are now being ground under the heel of a government that is supposed to protect them and serve them. Bunning isn’t running for reelection in the fall, so he doesn’t have to worry too much about hurting his constituents, but I can guarantee you if his pension were to be cut in order to cut expenses, he’d be all fired up then. “Pay as you go”. Gee what a novel concept; why didn’t you al think of that when you were spending our money hand over fist to fund a war that is still keeping us in the red nearly 10 years later. What a crock of manure.

Someone in KY needs to stand in front of an unemployment office with a petition to depose this eejit, and cut off his tidy congressional pension while they are at it.
Just when I think the Rs can’t get any lower, they always find a way to surprise me.

Most posts I’ve read on this issue do not support Bunning, and are critical of him, but there are those that do. I am not one of them. I’ve been unemployed for two years now. I’ve lost everything, home, car, credit, health insurance, savings, this list goes on. Had to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy. I’m 60 years old, look everyday for a job, and in every state. Nobody wants me now, too old. My only source of income now is Unemployment Insurance. Two years to social security. I’m one UI check away from being homeless. OK, take away my benefit. What do you think people in shoes will do? I know, I’ll rob the rich like Bunning to feed myself and my family. Desperate times and stupid people like Bunning and his cronies cause honest hard working people to do desperate things. This crisis is a recipe severe social unrest in this country.

We are not exactly living the high life on my unemployment benefits. Thank goodness we have no debt, so we can almost pay the rent and eat. Alcohol and pot? Forget it, it’s not in the budget. We stay home because we cannot afford to go anywhere. I have done everything I can think of to find a new job, but it’s been 11 months and here I sit. I can’t get a job out of my field because of my age, and I can’t get a job in my field because there are none. I tried to qualify for WIA-funded training so I can do something else, but the career councellor who is supposed to be working with me refuses to return my calls. So here I sit.

All the republicans want is for the bill to be paid for. Obama and the Democrats have already increased our deficit three fold. If I go to a grocery store and ask if I take food off the shelf even though I have no money they would think I was insane. Well I think the Democrats are insane.

The senator is saying that it shouldn’t be done unless they can find other things in the budget to cut to offset it. So when these benefits run out, should they be extended again at the cost of another 10 billion dollars or more? Good luck finding a job if that happens. Here is what the Fed Reserve chief said the other day when he was before Congress:
The Fed chief made it clear Wednesday that the $1.6 billion federal deficit, currently at 10.6% of GDP, is unsustainable, even if lawmakers can clip it to about 4% of GDP later in the decade, as President Obama’s recent budget proposes. He says he doesn’t expect the U.S. to grow its way out of its deficit hole, at least in the medium term. Marginal tax rates would have to be raised by about 60%, Bernanke acknowledged, if the deficit were to be reduced solely by raising taxes, which Bernanke says is “counterproductive” to growth.
You do understand what that means? Good luck finding a job if that happens. But hey, it’s ok, the Fed can just keep on running that printing press.

Just like welfare… if there is a way to milk the system people will. I am not ignorant and I expect that many do need unemployment but my guess… just like welfare there are many that dont and will not get a job until the money runs out. I know of many who are like this and doing this. Just like those on welfare they give the people who really need it a bad name. Great that they extended the benifits 30days, Great that they are looking into extending it thru the rest of year. Do all of you unemployed really think in jan of 2011 the economy will change and suddenly there will be jobs for the 1.2 billion americans currently on unemployment. No, it is estimated to take several years to recover so again next december we will all be sitting here waiting to see what congress decides. I think job training needs to be mandatory I think public service should be mandatory at this point. Help rebuild and give back to the goveronment that is now supporting 1.2 billion americans. Change the unemployment criteria and make it harder to stay on unemployment. Then we will really see who needs unemployment extensions verses the people that are milking the system. I am not againsit helping but I am against the free ride many americans are enjoying at the expense of our childrens future.

I think the senator has for forgotten who he is working,for the people and our taxes accumulated these funds over years. We the working people and employers have paid into the system for year.
They have cut the budget down to bare bones and I don’t see the senate or congress taking any paycuts. I worked for 37 years prior to be laid off due to a reduction in work force. No one wants to be unemployed. While we are at it why aren’t we being offerred the same healthcare as congress and the senate. This is a grandstand by a senator ready to retire.

Jan, obviously there are people like your alcoholic friend who take advantage of the situation. But there are about 99.9% of the rest of us who are looking for jobs and can’t find one. So why punish all of us because of the few who are taking advantage?

I still had four more weeks of unemployment left. That has been taken away. WHY and when will i get my four weeks back plus the other four weeks they have added on????????????

Thats one FINE detail GARY brought up, we that were previously employed and were TAXED for our current UNemployment,(which is a fraction of what we used to surrvive on)- Now have our UNemployment checks TAXED too!
So we are actually taxed doubly & more cruelly than the employed that are brave enough criticise us without passing a future mirror. So get ready to lose even more tax payers when we are done “just layin’ around”.
Trust me you dont know anxiety or deppression like the kind that hits you – after you used to feel secure with a job – theres now way you can enjoy doing nothing and expect a happy future. Hell I dont even bother trying to find a girl to be with (I’m too depressed to even fantasize about love, which I lost soon after my job). So go ahead and envey us and be sure to forget that we PAID our share – X2!