Tough Shit

I don’t know if you’ve ever had to apply for unemployment benefits but back in the day it was a pretty humiliating experience. Forced to stand in long lines and face invasive questioning from unemployment workers who acted as though you were a burden to their workload and day when in fact you were the very reason they had jobs. Forms had to be filled out and you had to keep a record of your job searches to submit weekly in order to maintain benefits you in fact had already earned. Anyway, nowadays it's a much more pleasant event and is mostly handled on line. But imagine this. Imagine you’ve suffered a job loss and you’ve applied on line. Imagine knowing that the small amount of money you receive from unemployment in no way will make ends meet. Imagine struggling to survive and the stress associated with calls from bill collectors unsympathetic to your plight. Imagine, as your bills pile up, this entire scenario taking place while you seek employment in a recessed economy. Then imagine what little you’ve come to expect from your unemployment benefits suddenly cut-off because one lone Republican Senator has decided he objects to a bill to pass a 30-day extension of jobless benefits and other expired measures, including health insurance assistance and funding for road and infrastructure projects across the country.

Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning is using that famous filibuster we’ve heard so much about in recent news or at least a variation of it and has been single-handedly blocking legislation since last Thursday thereby affecting over half a million people depending on the extension of benefits passing in order to survive. His objection includes demands that the Senate come up with a way to pay for the 30-day extension package by reducing spending elsewhere. Ok but in the meantime how do people pay their rent? What do people do about health insurance? And what about those currently working in jobs in infrastructure projects already begun across the country which have had to suspend workforces? This sadly, is just the latest attempt by the Republican Party to block all things Obama. The Republican party which claims to be that of the working people but I wonder how many Tea Baggers and other conservatives who claim to “want their country back” are affected by Senator Bunning’s irrational decision and how they feel about what it’s doing to our nations economy. Well Senator Bunning has certainly made his feelings clear. When pressed to acquiesce his refusal because of the affect it would cause to thousands of unemployed Americans and those who depend on Medicare he muttered “tough shit” under his breath.