Leni
Bunning may have won. He gets to add an amendment that will pay for this extension, most likely out of unused stimulus funds, instead of making it a new expenditure to be added to the deficit.
Bunning speaking live on the Senate floor on C-SPAN 2.
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Democrats threatened to keep the Senate in the chamber all night to inflict maximum pain on Republicans, and Bunning threatened to block all future nominations.
But both sides backed down, with a vote on a Bunning amendment and vote on final passage of the temporary 30-day extension.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has avoided the controversy over his home-state colleague, said that he was “pleased that Sen. Bunning will have an opportunity to offer the amendments that he thinks are important and that he has been stressing for the last few days. And I’m glad we were able to work this out and move with the business of the Senate.”
Bunning will get a vote at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday night on his amendment that would require the package to be paid for, and he tossed one final brushback at his Democratic opponents.
“I hope Senate Democrats tonight vote for their own pay-fors and show Americans that they are committed to fiscal discipline,” Bunning said. “I will be watching them closely and checking off the hypocrites one by one.”