Free Republic

"That's real courage." If I had a dollar for every conservative I heard say that -- sarcastically -- about Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky . . . I could at least buy lunch at the GOP-established D.C. Caucus Room restaurant, with the wine flowing. Bunning was making headlines for supposedly filibustering a bill to extend unemployment benefits. For days, I read and listened as he was accused of single-handedly holding the Senate and out-of-work Americans hostage. Bunning was doing this, if some of the media coverage was to be believed, because he didn't care about anything except whatever point...

AP's Andrew Taylor hits the media cyberwaves with the news that today's CBO analysis of Obama's 2011 budget plans would generate deficits totalling $9.8 trillion over the next decade.... $1.2 trillion more than predicted. But just as Harry Reid sluffed off a job loss of 36K last month as "a big day in America" Taylor also attempts to soften the blow. The agency says its future-year predictions of tax revenues are more pessimistic than the administration's. That's because CBO projects slightly slower economic growth than the White House. The deficit picture has turned alarmingly worse since the recession that started...

As we ponder how to fight global warming (ho ho ho), become less dependent on foreign oil and get our economy back in gear consider that highway congestion costs us about $76 billion annually in wasted time and fuel, and the remember that our interstates are a bit behind in maintenance, according to Robert W. Poole, Jr., an M.I.T-trained engineer who directs transportation studies at Reason Foundation. Washington taxes us 18.3 cents per gallon and there are those who would lead you to conclude that that is not enough since the maintenance shortfall is between $60 and $90 billion per...

President Obama's proposed budget would add more than $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, congressional budget analysts said Friday. Proposed tax cuts for the middle class account for nearly a third of that shortfall. The 10-year outlook released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is somewhat gloomier than White House projections, which found that Obama's budget request would produce deficits that would add about $8.5 trillion to the national debt by 2020. The CBO and the White House are in relative agreement about the short-term budget picture, with both predicting a deficit of about $1.5 trillion...

The federal deficit would hit $1.5 trillion in 2010 under President Barack Obama's proposals, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected Friday. The nonpartisan budget office said it projected a deficit measuring 10.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, and a $1.3 trillion deficit in 2011 that would measure 8.9 percent of next year's GDP.

President Barack Obama's budget will lead to deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion over the next decade, the CBO estimated Friday. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said President Barack Obama's budget would lead to annual deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion for the next decade. The estimates are for larger deficits than the budget shortfalls expected by the White House. Annual deficits under Obama’s budget plan would be about $976 billion from 2011 through 2020, according to a CBO analysis of Obama's plan released Friday.

Under increasing pressure from Democrats and members of his own party, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) Tuesday night abandoned his one-man filibuster of a one-month extension to unemployment benefits and other programs. In the end Bunning agreed to a deal allowing him one vote on an amendment to pay for the bill’s $10 billion cost. That proposal was offered by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last Thursday at the start of his filibuster, but Bunning rejected it because he feared his amendment would not pass. Reid has also agreed to give Bunning two votes on...

On Today's Show... March 2, 2010   Howard Fineman Wants to Know Where Health Care Money Goes Howard's trip to an Argentine hospital draws a response. (Rush 24/7 Members: Listen) » Howard Fineman: What the Debate Should Be About »  Mitch Daniels:  Hoosiers and Health Savings Accounts   Sen. Jim Bunning Drives the Left Nuts for Standing Up to Big Spending The unemployed aren't going to be cut off, but the Senate should stick to its paygo rule and pay for it. For this stand, the media is describing Bunning as if he were the nasty Harry Reid.   ...

In January, the Senate joined the House in passing "pay-as-you-go" rules to require Congress to pay for new discretionary spending. On Feb. 12, President Obama signed the bill. "Now Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else," Obama crowed. Less than a month later, Obama and fellow Democrats are busily demonizing a lone senator for pushing Washington to spend responsibly. It seems this administration is all for fiscal restraint — as long as you don't mean it. The story began last week when Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., blocked Senate passage of a bill to extend...

While Senate Republicans have started to bail on Sen. Jim Bunning and his one-man Senate filibuster, House Minority Leader John Boehner is backing the Kentucky Republican’s efforts to stall an unemployment benefits, COBRA and highway funding bill. “I think Sen. Bunning has a legitimate argument he’s making. The Democrats just passed this pay-go legislation, and not even a week after the president signed it into law, they want to exempt the first bill that comes to the Senate floor,” Boehner said in a press conference Tuesday. Earlier Tuesday, Sen. Susan Collins criticized the Bunning for holding up federal unemployment benefits,...

WASHINGTON – To the increasing discomfort of his fellow Republicans, Sen. Jim Bunning on Tuesday again blocked the Senate from extending unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless. The Kentucky Republican objected to a request by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a fellow Republican, to pass a 30-day extension of jobless benefits and other expired measures. The measure would also extend highway programs and prevent a big cut in Medicare payments to doctors. Bunning has been single-handedly blocking the stopgap legislation since Thursday... ----- Bunning made the following quotes on the floor of the United States Senate: "I believe...

Waiting all day for this. Happy to see it.

Senator Jim Bunning (R), the 2nd term junior Senator from Kentucky, has been roundly criticized by the Democratic candidate for the Senate, Daniel Mongiardo, for blocking additional deficit spending. What the main stream media does not point out is that Bunning has suggested the use of Stimulus Funds to cover the extension of benefits rather than reaching into tax-payers’ pockets for an additional $10 billion. Other candidates have weighed in on this issue: “I support Senator Jim Bunning. Frankly, unemployment benefits are currently 99 weeks or almost two years. While I support extending the benefits for a short period of...

Jim Bunning, whose Father's Day perfect game gives many Phillies fans smiles even after 46 years, has thrown the Democrats and their enablers a curve that should bring smiles to all who care about this country. The major-leaguer turned Kentucky senator has by his lonesome blocked a bill that would extend unemployment benefits and health insurance for the millions of Americas who have been out of work for months in the Obama economy. Pretty mean, huh? Well Bunning points out that the bill he is blocking adds $10 billion to the deficit which is spiraling out of control under our...

Sarah Palin stormed the bestseller list last year with "Going Rogue"-a political memoir whose title coyly referenced the former GOP vice presidential nominee's supposed defiance of the consultants running the McCain campaign. But this year we have a new poster boy for the Going Rogue playbook: GOP Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky. For the past week, Bunning has been single-handedly blocking more than a million Americans from receiving unemployment and COBRA health insurance benefits, as of today, when their benefits funded under the 2009 stimulus law run out. The suspension of benefits affects everyone from doctors to government employees

Actually, The US Is Massively Bailing Out California, And You Should Be Relieved About That Joe Weisenthal | Feb. 28, 2010, 2:06 PM | 2,158 | comment 25 Last week we compared our situation in regards to states like California's to the EU's Greek situation, and grimly noted that the main difference seemed to be size: California is a much bigger deal to the US than Greece is to the EU. Other than that, there didn't seem to be much of a difference: Both systems have a common currency, while states are forced to manage their own budgets. /snip Now...

This image shows how big a block of pennies would be for 10 trillion dollars. Unfortunately the projected deficit under Obamacare would (or will be) 12 Trillion. Those first 2 buildings on the left are the Sears Tower and the Empire State Buiding.     value  $10,000,670,883,840.00(Ten trillion, six hundred seventy million, eight hundredeighty-three thousand, eight hundred and forty dollarsand zero cents) width  2,730 feet height  2,730 feet thickness  2,730 feet total weight  3,125,000,000 tons height stacked  986,426,768 Miles area (laid flat)  89,675,161 acres You could cover about 95% of California with a single layer of pennies for this amount.

Billionaire investor George Soros, who helped U.S. President Barack Obama raise money for his presidential campaign in 2008, said Sunday he wasn't happy with Mr. Obama's handling of the financial crisis. Mr. Soros said the government should have taken over U.S. banks instead of bailing them out, a move he suggested would have been more popular with Americans. "The solution that he found to the financial crisis, which was to effectively bail out the banks and allow them to earn their way out of the hole, was, in my opinion, not the right solution," Mr. Soros said in an interview...

An alternative budget proposal submitted by Congressman Paul Ryan (Wis.), the House Budget Committee's Republican ranking member, would increase the federal budget deficit even more than President Obama's bloated budget — nearly $1 trillion more — according to a February 24 analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Ryan's “alternative policy scenario” would make no serious spending cuts, but it would institute three new tax cuts. CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf explained to Ryan that “the three changes to the tax policy assumptions are estimated to increase deficits relative to the baseline projections by $9 billion in 2010 and $3.4 trillion...

WASHINGTON — Some unemployment benefits could dry up Monday. Newly laid-off workers wouldn't get federal help with health insurance premiums. Road and transit bills could go unpaid, Medicare payments to doctors would stay high and rural satellite reception could be affected, all thanks to Sen. Jim Bunning's decision to block legislation that would keep alive a host of programs that expire Sunday night. The Kentucky Republican, according to several sources, told Democratic colleagues "tough s---" Thursday when they tried to get him to change his mind. The Senate is expected to consider a longer-term extension of the programs Monday, with...