Senate impasse puts federal employees out of work

[cory777]

Source: AP

By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Writer Joan Lowy, Associated Press Writer – Mon Mar 1, 12:03 am ET

WASHINGTON – Two thousand federal transportation workers will be furloughed without pay on Monday, and the Obama administration said they have a Kentucky senator to blame for it.

Federal reimbursements to states for highway programs will also be halted, the Transportation Department said in a statement late Sunday. The reimbursements amount to about $190 million a day, according to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

The furloughs and freeze on payments were the result of a decision last week by Republican Sen. Jim Bunning to block passage of legislation that would have extended federal highway and transit programs, the department said. Those programs expired at midnight Sunday.

The extension of transportation programs was part of a larger package of government programs that also expired Sunday, including unemployment benefits for about 400,000 Americans.

Bunning objected to the $10 billion measure, saying it would add to the budget deficit. He didn't immediately respond to a request Sunday for comment.

The impasse has provided the administration with an opening to excoriate Republicans for allowing popular programs to run out, even if only for a short time.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100301/ap_on_bi_ge/us_transportation_furloughs

[cutlassmama]

1. an opening???!!! Half of America is pissed off at Bunning right about now

[bobburgster]

2. Well, hopefully....

the other half will soon be too :)

[deacon]

9. It's another item added to the GOP "no" resume'. Something to remind voters of in November. n/t

[SusanaMontana41]

16. Remember in November.

Exactly!

[True_Blue]

36. GOP is no longer the party of NO.

Now they are the party of 'Tough Sh!t'!

[dotymed]

11. No Shit.

Hopefully our President uses his bully pulpit to tell America what a friggin idiot, Bunning AND his like minded Senators are. If this economy is not a reason for deficit spending, there has never been a reason. Fuck Them.

[Jax]

3. How do you feel about this cory777?

Tell us.

On edit:
his to this spelling.

[cory777]

4. It's time to do some excoriating!

[Jax]

5. Then do some cory777 excoriating!

you go cory777

Tell us, please please excoriate about this.

[True_Blue]

33. Thanks for posting

So why isn't the Liberal media reporting this story on the news? I sure didn't see it.

[dotymed]

13. ???

What is Cory777 supposed to do about this? Does he have a magic wand? I, myself, appreciate the info. Thank you Cory777

[gleaner]

6. People will feel even worse ...

when they realize that even if the federal employees are furloughed without pay now, they will have to be paid later. There will also be the costs of shutting down their operations and then starting them up again.

That is what got Gingrich thrown out on his ear. He furloughed the federal employees government wide except for those who were considered "essential" who were forced to work without pay. However the federal unions had taken the issue to court because Congress was using it to try to force pork barrel issues and laws concerning abortion and other issues which had nothing to do with running the government and holding the federal employees hostage to do it. The courts ruled that admin leave applied to furloughs, and everyone had to be paid anyway. Admin leave is granted when employees are ready to work, can report to work but are turned away due to circumstances beyond their control like butthead elected officials. The estimated cost of a government wide furlough was about 3 billion dollars. The employees got an unwanted paid holiday, and the taxpayers shelled out for it.

They got away with it for so long because our bright, shining media clunks didn't report the cost. But when Gingrich did it, someone spilled the beans and it went public. People were incensed. It was fine with them when they thought we were not being paid, but when they found out we were and it was costing them for that and closing down/starting up operations they got so angry that Gingrich and the other "new Republicans" were voted out of office. This isn't any different if the Dept. of Transportation workers are regular GS civil service employees and not some strange hybrid like the TSA workers. If they are regular civil service they will get paid, their ops will have to be covered and all of us will foot the bill. Fun huh? I know I enjoyed being told I was furloughed and how hard the administration (Clinton) was trying to keep it that way. I hope Bunning enjoys the same loss of work as the people he has furloughed, only for him permanent.

I see you are new here. Welcome to DU.

[dotymed]

12. I don't know about KY.

When Mitch Daniels was "elected?" Governor of Indiana, his first official act, was to force all state employees to quit the Union. I thought this was illegal. The prior-bush budget director Daniels (I swear) has since "won" re-election, and wreaked havoc on our state. I earned waaay below the poverty line last year, but my income taxes (and I am a full-time student) are almost $400....

[gleaner]

38. The individual states are different ...

They are not subject to federal rules when it comes to state employees. They make their own rules, as Daniels did in Indiana and Arnie has here in California. It was only recently that a judge ruled that California had to stop furloughing state employees here, and that the state had to stop issuing scrip which had no monetary worth as compensation for either services or to vendors.

The federal unions are only for employees of the federal government. They can't be disbanded unless they break federal labor law as the union for the Air Traffic Controllers did under Reagan. They went out on strike which is illegal, and Reagan fired the Controllers. The head of the union resigned for his miscalculation in having them walk out, but Reagan took the stand that since they had gone out on strike for one day it was a severe enough infraction of law that they could never work as Controllers again. They got some relief from the courts in that they were allowed to work at other federal jobs if they qualified, but never again as Controllers. Their issue wasn't money or benefits. Their issue was that the number of hours they worked without a break was so long that they were afraid that planes were going to start crashing because they were too fatigued to see what they needed to see. They went into the strike knowing the outcome would not be good, but they thought the lives of the public were more important. Seems as if it was only important to them. Reagan didn't give a rat's ass. He hired the second tier Controllers who had not done so well on the tests and put them to work. Coupled with his cutbacks in government mandated inspections of aircraft for mechanical safety, the number of crashes increased.

Sorry to divert from your original question, but I think the states make their own rules for state employees and unions. Hopefully the union that Daniels disbanded will go to court and get some relief. It is about the only recourse they have.

[ChicagoSuz219]

7. Held up by one jerk! n/t

[NecklyTyler]

10. Held up by one REPUBLICAN jerk

[ChicagoSuz219]

14. Thought that went without saying... ;-) n/t

[CLANG]

19. Some still don't see those 2 words as synonyms.

This is the time to pound it home! :beer:

[deacon]

8. The GOP"s slogan all along 'tough shit!' - bunnings a good poster boy for them. n/t

[whatacountry09]

15. Karma...

I am NOT usually mean like this, BUT... I hope he finds himself walking in the shoes of the people he just fucked! That is the ONLY way people like him wake up realize how damn selfish they really are.

[CLANG]

17. He holds up the entire country for a lousy $10 billion?

Did he vote for Bush's tax cuts or the war in Iraq? The guy should be shot (metaphorically, Agent Mike).

[True_Blue]

34. Where was Jim Bunning was when George Bush added $8 Trillion to the deficit

--oh right, voting for each bill.

[FarCenter]

18. How did the moron Senate leadership (Reid) let Bunning do this?

Why didn't they move the legislation early enough so that it can't be stalled by a single Senator?

[CLANG]

21. I think it could be a very astute political move

This could open a lot of peoples eyes.

[No Elephants]

28. I doubt this is deliberate, but shame on the Democrats if it is. Dem v. Pub does not justify

making so many people suffer.

I have to wonder as well, why Reid did not make Bunning actually filibuster. I can see no excuse for that either.

[FarCenter]

37. This isn't about filibustering; it is about emergency procedures

Reid requested that normal procedures of the Senate be set aside by unanimous consent and that the bill be voted upon.

Thus, in this case, a single Senator can refuse to give consent and hold up the bill.

It will presumably pass under a vote taken in regular order according to the normal procedures. If the bill had been brought forward earlier, a single Senator could not stop it. It would take 40 to filibuster it.

[True_Blue]

35. Because the Republicons were filibustering everything

For the last couple of weeks it was in the Jobs Bill but there were signs that the Republicons were going to load up that jobs bill with every sort of earmark, and then vote against it. Harry split out this portion of the bill for emergency consideration thinking it would have better chance at passing.

[Vinca]

20. When speaking about this issue, Democrats need to stop saying

"Kentucky Senator" and say "Mr. Bunning, the Republican Senator from Kentucky." Identify the culprit more precisely, otherwise the dim bulbs will be lining up in Kentucky to vote for Republicans even though they've starved their families.

[LynneSin]

25. I'm suprised Fox hasn't labeled him as a Democrat yet

That's their mojo you know!

[lonestarnot]

22. Is this on the snooze?

[The Wizard]

23. Bunning is proof

that qualifications for the United States Senate from a Confederate State include pitching a no hitter in the Major Leagues.
The last campaign Bunning ran for Senate should have been a signal that he was a bit out of kilter.
Where's Doc Ellis when you need him?

[Love Bug]

24. As much as I think Bunning deserves everything he gets the real blame

should go to Harry Reid for not taking up this problem, oh, say, A MONTH AGO instead of waiting until the last possible fucking minute before the deadline. Even if the extensions had been approved on Friday, letters to the unemployed have already gone out in many states and computers everywhere had already been programmed for the Sunday shut-off. All of that would have had to have been reversed on the weekend, costing State governments even more money (overtime, you know) plus the possibility of glitches due to human error because of the rush.

A lot of the people directly affected (including myself) have been watching the clock for WEEKS waiting for the Senate to do something yet they wasted a whole, fucking day on a worthless health care summit. Speaking of health care, millions of the unemployed just lost their COBRA discount. The longer the Senate takes to renew it, the more people are going to be forced to drop COBRA because they no longer will be able to afford it, putting their families at risk. They will have to decide that pretty quickly, too, because if they wait too long, they're going to get a whopping bill later, which they cannot afford, even if the discount is reinstated.

I have ZERO confidence in Reid right now. He's proven again and again to not have the nads it takes to get things done. Where the hell is Tip O'Neil when you need him?

[No Elephants]

29. Tip was Speaker of the House, another story entirely. No super majorities. No "Old Boys" Club.

Blaming Harry Reid falls too easily into a neatly set rap, IMO.

Democrats in the Senate elected Harry to lead them when they were in the minority as well as when they were in the majority, and they make no move to remove him. Why do you think all of that is? (IMO, he does exactly what they want and silently takes the blame by himself, without pointing fingers back at his constituency, which is a majority of Democratic Senators.)

[AllyCat]

26. Make no mistake: Bunning is just the fall guy for the rest of the Cons

They are all for this, but don't want to look bad before elections this year. It's the whole lot of them.

They have no problem sending trillions to the Middle East, but balk at $10B for jobs and the American people. $10B is chump change in the grand scheme of things, but a huge deal to those who are hanging onto their jobs and homes by a thread.

[SlingBlade]

27. It's a Republican impasse. Not a Senate impasse !

[No Elephants]

30. Bunning is a crazy turd, BUT why did Reid let him off the hook from actual filibuster?

And please don't scapegoat Reid. IMO, like all who hold elective office, the Senate Majority Leader does not operate without an eye to those who elected him, in this case, a majority of the Democratic Senators. See also, Reply #29.

[classysassy]

31. Oh what fools we mortals be

none of the boys or girls in that august body give a damn about average citizens out side of the beltway. All of them are snickering behind our backs about their latest scam pulled on the il informed citizens.WAKEUP AMERICA BEFORE ITS TOO LATE.

[True_Blue]

32. We need a whole lot more Liberal Dems voted in

We care about PEOPLE, not just dead millionaires that don't want to pay taxes!

[bushmeister0]

39. USDOT Furloughs to Shut Down Critical Construction Projects

Source: USDOT

"The Department of Transportation will furlough nearly 2,000 employees without pay Monday, temporarily shutting down highway reimbursements to states worth hundreds of millions of dollars, national anti-drunk driving efforts, and multi-million dollar construction projects across the country.

The action comes as a result of Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning’s decision to block key legislation that would have extended several critical priorities for middle class families. That legislation covered tax credits for COBRA health coverage, unemployment insurance for 400,000 people, as well as the short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund. The Fund supports all surface transportation programs for the nation – highways, bridges, transit and safety inspections, as well as efforts to encourage seat belt use and to fight distracted and impaired driving."

Read more: http://www.dot.gov/affairs/2010/dot3610.htm

---

Seems like every week now one of the Senators from the Party of NO! is coming up with some reason to shut down some crucial function of the government. I'm sure it's all easily explained by their desire to save the tax payer's money, though. I mean, otherwise someone might get the idea they're intentionally trying to destroy the government. Ha, ha! But that would be treason, parish the thought!

[happygoluckytoyou]

40. take time to contact the senator.... here is his information-----

http://bunning.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

ZIP CODE 40000 thru 40400

http://bunning.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

HE SHOULD BE PROUD OF HIS ACTIONS---- AND NOW IS A GOOD TIME TO SAY HI

[okieinpain]

41. dems should remind people every day why this happened. n/t

[bushmeister0]

42. The GOP will spin this into this some how being the dem's fault

and then the dems will scurry back into their corner and hide. My God, where's someone who's got brass ones like Anthony Wiener when you need him?

[okieinpain]

44. no joke, man I actually applauded when they showed that on tv. n/t

[winyanstaz]

43. Your right....;) the assholes that made this mess in the first place

would never resort to treason to further force us into the New World Order and destroy the economy even further.

That would be treason for sure.

I have to agree with you...parish the thought they would ever do this on purpose. It must be an accident. :P