06/25/09 Bunning and Paul: Fed trendsetters?
Politico
By Victoria McGrane
June 25, 2009
Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will line up Thursday to take their shots at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
To which Ron Paul and Jim Bunning might say: Where have you been?
Paul and Bunning — viewed by their colleagues as among the most eccentric members of Congress — were anti-Fed before anti-Fed was cool.
Paul, a Republican representative from Texas, has railed against the Federal Reserve for so long that his supporters sometimes chanted “End the Fed! End the Fed!” at rallies during his long-shot 2008 presidential run.
Bunning, a Republican senator from Kentucky, hates the Fed so much that he compared it — unfavorably — with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez when it bailed out the insurance giant American International Group last year.
The two were outliers then, but they aren’t now. Republicans and Democrats alike have balked at President Barack Obama’s proposal to expand the Fed’s power to help prevent another financial crisis. And on Thursday, members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — which has already served the Fed two subpoenas on the issue — will hammer Bernanke face to face for his role in aiding Bank of America’s takeover of Merrill Lynch, for which Bank of America received $20 billion in bailout funds.
Paul says he’s happy to have his colleagues jump aboard his bandwagon.
“I feel pretty good about it,” Paul told POLITICO.
Paul doesn’t claim responsibility for the anti-Fed movement on the Hill. “I don’t think it’s me so much as the circumstances,” he said. And he readily admits that his real goal — abolishing the Fed altogether — still faces plenty of resistance.
But Paul’s bill to mandate the first-ever audit of the Fed suddenly finds itself with 242 co-sponsors. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) isn’t among them, but even she has begun to speak out in favor of more transparency at the Fed.
Voters watched Congress rush through the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, Paul said, “and all of a sudden, they find out that this money is going to the wrong places as far as they’re concerned. And then they realize Congress has lost control.”
That’s when the concerns he’s raised for years about the Fed’s inflationary policies and unchecked power struck a chord, Paul said. “Could it be possible that the Fed not only can cause these bubbles, but they’re, you know, acting on their own? That’s what I’ve argued. They have more clout financially than the Congress has. I am absolutely convinced of that,” he said.
As hot-tempered as Paul is soft-spoken, Bunning is notorious for his tirades against Bernanke and his predecessor, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.
Bunning, no fan of Capitol Hill press, declined to be interviewed for this story. But his record speaks for itself.
He opposed Bernanke’s nomination to the top Fed spot for participating in the “groupthink” of the Fed’s Board of Governors under Greenspan, never challenging or voting against the then-chairman. And he has bashed Bernanke on every step of the financial crisis. While he doesn’t go as far as Paul in calling for the dissolution of the central bank, he, too, continually blasts the Fed for overstepping its bounds.
In September 2008, he introduced legislation to take away the Fed’s authority to make loans to nonbanks, as it did with AIG and now-defunct investment bank Bear Stearns. “I have said on more than one occasion that I don’t think the Federal Reserve can handle the powers they have, and this irresponsible bailout just proves my point,” Bunning said at the time.
That legislation didn’t attract a single co-sponsor. But in March, Bunning teamed up with Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) on an amendment to the nonbinding Senate budget that directed the Fed to disclose the names of banks that have received emergency loans — and to require an audit of the Fed.
The measure passed with 59 votes. And while it didn’t carry the rule of law, Fed observers saw it as a sharp rebuke of the central bank.
“The Federal Reserve has handed out over $2 trillion to various financial institutions with absolutely no accountability for who they are giving to and how much those institutions are getting,” Bunning said. “I have asked repeatedly for an answer to this — but without success. If the Fed is going to print money hand over fist that the United States government can’t afford, I think the taxpayers have a right to know exactly who they are giving this money to and how much. It’s time for the Fed to come clean with the American people.”
As Obama asks Congress to expand the Fed’s regulatory powers as part of his proposal to restructure the financial system, Bunning has quite a bit of company in the skeptics’ corner, including Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia and Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.
Even Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has questioned the wisdom of giving the Fed new powers.
Like Bunning, Paul might have been ahead of the curve in his criticism of the Fed, but the Texan says he doesn’t believe in “I told you so.”
“I don’t think you gain any points at all,” he said. “I’d much rather have somebody come down and sit next to me on the House floor and ask me a serious question. That happens more often now than it did.”
06/25/09 Bill seeks to expand sick worker benefits
The Paducah Sun
By Bill Bartleman
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Some adult children and other relatives of former sick workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant would be eligible for up to $250,000 in federal benefits under legislation U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning co-sponsored. The proposed amendment to the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program expands eligibility benefits that are now limited to the surviving spouse and dependent children to include children, parents, grandchildren and grandparents.
Benefits a re paid for workers who became ill or died from job-related exposure to nuclear materials and other chemicals at government nuclear plants throughout the country.
Under the original program approved in 2000 and amended in 2004, workers who died from work-related illness are eligible for $150,000 and survivors who suffered job-related illness are eligible for up to $250,000 in worker’s compensation benefits.
Bunning and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., introduced the latest amendment last week. It takes the U.S. Department of Labor two years or more to process claims, resulting in some workers or their spouses dying before their claim is approved, Bunning said. If the proposed legislation is approved, the compensation could be paid to other family members, he said.
Under terms of the original survivor benefit legislation, adult children and other relatives weren’t eligible to receive the benefits, which stirred protests from surviving adult children.
If approved, the change would be retroactive to the start of the programs, Bunning said in his weekly news conference with Kentucky reporters.
It would not affect cases in which a worker or spouse died before they filed a claim. Mike Reynard, Bunning’s press secretary, said the Department of Labor did not have figures on how many families nationwide would be affected.
According to the latest figures available, more than 3,000 former Paducah workers received benefits in excess of $400 million . Tennessee has about 20,000 sick workers, the highest of any state. Most worked in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
06/19/09 Filing unemployment, finding a job
Ronica Shannon
Richmond Register News Writer
June 19, 2009
After the shock of losing a job has worn off, it is time to get back to work. The process of filing unemployment can be a job in itself, according to Richmond resident Sean Labuy.
He was fired from a delivery job last year, but did not begin receiving his unemployment compensation until about three months ago, Labuy said.
A change in management led to his firing, he said. “He said ‘I don’t want to see you back here on Monday. You’re being fired,’” Labuy said. “I was stunned. I was putting in 70- and 80-hour weeks. It wasn’t like I wasn’t doing my job.”
He immediately filed for unemployment, but he was contacted by someone from the local unemployment office who told him that his employer was contesting the claim. Labuy appealed three times and eventually was approved to receive unemployment benefits.
He wrote letters to the governor and other state government officials, and said it was Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., who “got the ball rolling,” Labuy said. Bunning was able to contact someone in Frankfort who proceeded with Labuy’s case by having several telephone hearings, Labuy said. “The last thing it came down to was they said I had quit,” he said. “They kept changing their story and I kept saying the same thing over again. They (his previous employer) got called out on lies.”
Labuy used his unemployed time wisely even while battling his way through the unemployment filing process.
“All that time, I was out there (looking for work),” he said. Labuy said that most of his down time was spent looking for a job, which eventually paid off. He is now back in the workforce. Aubrey Maffett, also of Richmond, would probably call Labuy downright “lucky.”
She was fired from her job on Jan. 7 after six years of employment. Her unemployment filing process was not as dramatic as Labuy’s, but when it came time to look for another job, the obstacles began to surface. “Four months went by with not so much as a peep from the hundreds of applications for employment I had sent to potential employers,” she said. “The problem with my job search, in my opinion, was that employers will not look at applicants that are over qualified for some positions for fear of them leaving employment with their company as soon as they find better employment. I know this because I have been one of those hiring managers throughout my career in retail. Companies are looking for long-term employees who will work cheaply and stay with them for a long time.” Maffett has been through several interview processes with no call backs, but the latest development has left her very excited.
“For the first time since my termination back in January, I have a second interview with a company next Wednesday,” she said.
With companies in no mood to hire, the unemployment rate jumped to 9.4 percent in May, this highest in more than 25 years, according to a statement issued earlier this month from the U.S. Labor Department.
As of Thursday, the state’s unemployment rate is 10.6 percent, according to a statement from Gov. Steve Beshear. The average work week in May fell to 33.1 hours, the lowest on records dating to 1964. The number of people out of work six months or longer rose to more than 3.9 million in May, triple the amount from when the recession began.
However, the state’s labor department said the pace of layoffs in May eased, with employers cutting only 345,000 jobs, the fewest since September. The much smaller-than-expected reduction in payroll jobs reported adds to evidence that the recession is loosening its hold on the country. It marked the fourth straight month that the pace of layoffs slowed.
The number of people in the nation drawing unemployment also has dropped for the first time in 20 weeks, according to the department of labor’s report.
How to apply for unemployment in Kentucky
1. Contact the Central Kentucky Job Center, 595 S. Keeneland Drive, at 624-2564.
2. Information to have available:
• social security number
• address
• phone number
• company names, addresses, dates and phone numbers of employers during the past 18 months
• driver’s license or legal identification
• mother’s maiden name
• bank routing number (in case unemployment compensation checks are directly deposited into a bank account)
3. Apply for unemployment.
This process can be completed in person at the Central Kentucky Job Center in Richmond or online at www.kewes.ky.gov.
4. Call in bi-weekly checks. After you are approved to receive unemployment, it is a personal responsibility to call in and claim benefit checks.
The KEWES (Kentucky Electronic Workplace for Employment Services) Internet claims system is accessible for filing an unemployment claim or requesting your bi-weekly check online.
The system is available Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. You cannot request bi-weekly checks on Saturdays.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
