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.
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…
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.
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…
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.
And I have been fooled by some things and some things have gone past me and I woke up after it had already passed me. This is not one of those things that was going to do that. Of course, we can have a vote on it, and, of course, it can be…
Given what you learned during the AIG crisis and the bailout, do you think Congress should be doing something to address insurance regulation or the commercial paper markets?
If it is going to be done, it has to be done in the Congress of the United States to get everybody cooperating, both Rs and Ds.
During my time in Congress, which has been unbelievably long... I have worked to advance the creation of a strong domestic fuel industry.
Isn't it time--not only that this administration and other administrations have just failed to pursue nuclear power as an alternative--when we, in fact, are--if we want a green energy production of electricity, particularly electricity…