The Public Record
Jim Bunning is a former United States Senator from Kentucky, serving from 1999 to 2011. A member of the Republican Party, Bunning was known for his strong conservative positions and advocacy for fiscal responsibility. Before his political career, he was a professional baseball player, notably a pitcher in Major League Baseball, where he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1987. Bunning's tenure in the Senate included a focus on issues such as energy policy and workers' compensation reform, often criticizing the Department of Energy's handling of compensation programs for workers.
First of all, let me say this, that I believe the Senator from Illinois is correct that everybody in this Chamber wants to extend unemployment benefits, COBRA health care benefits, flood insurance, the highway bill assistance, medical doc…
We have tried to work this out with the majority, particularly after the pay-go vote last week. When 100 Senators are for a bill and we can't find $10 billion to pay for it, there is something the matter, seriously the matter with this…
A question. OK. If all the things that have been said on the other side are true, all of the programs you have talked about could have been extended and for much longer periods if Senator Reid, your leader, had not blown up the bipartisan…
It has been brought up during this debate that the balanced budget amendment and the balanced budget is a product of the Clinton administration. The Senator from Illinois knows that to be false.
That is only because Representative John Kasich and the Budget Committee that he chaired in the House, for 3 years in a row, brought a balanced budget bill to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. I was a member of that Budget…
There are so many things that I would like to say in response to so many Senators. Before I do that, I want to straighten a few things out. First of all, the prescription drug Part D--I want to help out my good friend from Missouri and my…
It seems to me people have not been listening, particularly the Senator from Illinois. He has been through two of these with the leader. He heard the arguments on both sides. Unfortunately, he has a one-side-only view of this situation. I…
Even the fact that our President--somebody who talked about extending tax cuts to the wealthy and talked about extending tax cuts, and the fact that nobody on the floor of this Senate--explain to me, with 60 Democrats and 40 Republicans…
I understand that. I have voted for that occasionally. But this one you read from was fully paid for.
The press release you read from was about an unemployment insurance extension that was fully paid for. So don't compare apples to oranges.
It has been a long night. It is called an ambush. That is what happened. The consent that I was assured of was going to be that the Senator from Illinois offer the same--I am going to get it right--30-day extension without an offset. He…
I paid for it, and I paid for it out of stimulus money. We passed in this body just last week a pay-go that is extended to all the bills that come through this body. We passed a bill earlier this week on which we did not do pay-go. We did…