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Sen. Jim Bunning: A new profile in courage
By Leland Conway
March 10, 2010

Sen. Jim Bunning’s courageous one-man stand against the hypocrisy of the big spending left should be included in the American profiles in courage.

The media should be ashamed for deliberately misleading the public by not telling the whole story. They not only showed their bias toward a certain political ideology, but they did an injustice to the profession of journalism.

The whole truth about Sen. Bunning is that he was never against extending unemployment benefits, but simply wanted them paid for with existing funds.

Just a few weeks ago, the Senate reached bi-partisan agreement on an extension of the benefits as a part of the original “jobs bill.”

Senate Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., decided to drop that bill in favor of another one that would be more helpful to him in his home state, where he trails badly in the polls. Jobless benefits went to the back burner until three days before they were set to expire.

Also just a few weeks ago, the Democrats passed the pay-go law, which requires Congress to pay for everything it spends with cuts in spending elsewhere or tax increases rather than borrowing. Adding to the debt to pay for unemployment benefits violated that principle.

Bunning refused to allow Democrats to pass their hastily put together extension without a discussion and instead offered an amendment that would use unspent stimulus funds to cover the cost.

When the Democrats refused, he asked for other ideas. They again refused and the media reported the story, but not fully.

Two-thirds of the stimulus money remains unspent, a virtual re-election slush fund for the Democrats, ready to be dolled out in liberal districts throughout the summer and early fall just in time for mid-term elections.

Feeling threatened, the Democrats threw a very predictable hissy fit, followed by a very predictable lapdog media happily slurping up the more sensational facts of the story and doling them out to an unsuspecting public that is already fearful about the country’s economic future.

Meanwhile, the real issue has been completely ignored. What America needs now is jobs, not jobless benefits.

President Obama and his stimulus package have been in office for more than a year. When they passed the bill, they repeated over and over that it was for the “immediate” creation of jobs. Instead, all we hear in the economy is crickets chirping, and the occasional mumbling of a liberal talking head about millions of jobs “saved or created” or some other mythical equation no one can understand.

How about an across-the-board corporate tax cut for American businesses so they can start hiring again?

Unfortunately, the left is too busy demonizing the American business community to realize that ironically it is the only thing that can save us now.

Obama hasn’t created a single job; all he’s created is an atmosphere of fear and the American business community is paralyzed with it.

“Maybe they will raise taxes, or over-regulate us.”

“If we make a profit, they’ll condemn us for it or worse yet, maybe we won’t make a profit and they’ll bail us out.”

No one knows, so here we sit and stagnate.

The Congressional Budget Office says that Obama’s initiatives will add $9.7 trillion to our deficit by 2020, bringing our national debt to 90 percent of our total GDP.

Sen. Jim Bunning drew an important line in the sand — one that could preserve prosperity for our next generation if the American people will hold it for him in the voting booths this fall.

When he comes home at the end of his term, he should be treated as a hero.

Leland Conway is the executive editor and co-founder of www.conservativeedge.com and the host of the Pulse of Lexington on News Radio 630 WLAP.

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