The Republican Party has been extremely negative on anything Barack Obama wants to do, and the multiple delays in extension of unemployment compensation, held up by the infamous Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, and now Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, is finally over!
We are in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and these senators, and others, who had no problem funding the two wars we are in, and the Medicare prescription Part D plan of George W. Bush, without figuring out how to pay for it, have now been overcome by cooperation of four colleagues, all of whom should have backed the Health Care reform legislation, but failed to do that!
But at least now there are signs of cooperation by these four moderates–Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and George Voinovich of Ohio.
The extension of unemployment benefits was won by a 60-34 vote, enough to stop any further attempt at a filibuster.
It is also encouraging to see Scott Brown, who accepted Tea Party support during his campaign to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, now fail to find time to go to a Tea Party event in Boston starring Sarah Palin. It seems that Brown is trying to separate himself from any association with Palin, certainly a smart move if he hopes to win reelection in 2012 when he will likely have to face a Kennedy family member challenging him for a full Senate term.
The hope is that these four senators, and a few others in the Republican party, will now back the Obama Administration on climate change and financial reform legislation coming up for consideration soon.
The best way to get things done is to promote bipartisanship, so let us applaud these four moderates for finally acting statesmanlike, instead of just territorially staying loyal to their party when it makes no sense!