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Senate Pork: Who Was That Masked Man? Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) objects to earmarks irrespective of partisanship
October 26, 2007 Your Oct. 24 article “GOP senators hunt for Democratic earmarks” implied, mainly through your sources, that my criticism of earmarks is more partisan than my long record indicates. First, I understand that many senators don’t appreciate my efforts to curtail earmarks. However, if senators don’t like my mix of amendments I would invite them to offer their own amendments targeting pork sponsored by Republicans and Democrats alike. I would welcome their help. Anyone who has followed my service in Congress knows that no one has criticized my own party for losing its way on spending and pork more forcefully and consistently than I have. I twice worked to remove then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) from his post while the GOP was expanding the earmark favor factory. In 1998, I criticized the then-Republican chairman of the Transportation Committee, Rep. Bud Shuster (Pa.), for trading highway pork for votes. In the Senate, anyone who has concerns about my partisan motivations should spend a few minutes with my Republican friends Ted Stevens (Alaska), Trent Lott (Miss.) and Thad Cochran (Miss.), all of whom have sponsored earmarks I forcefully opposed on the floor. The real issue, I would contend, that matters to taxpayers is not the balance of my amendments but the fact that so few senators are offering them. Congress has approved tens of thousands of earmarks in the past 20 years worth billions of dollars but only a tiny fraction of all earmarks (less than one-tenth of one-percent) are ever challenged directly or indirectly on the floor of the House or Senate. Both parties should be embarrassed by this record and held accountable for rubberstamping billions of dollars worth of special interest earmarks with virtually no accountability and oversight. Will the new majority be held to a higher standard that may sometimes feel unfair? Yes. It’s called the burden of leadership. The party in charge always receives a disproportionate share of the blame. I will continue to single out wasteful spending without regard to party affiliation and would invite other senators to do the same. Yet, if sponsors of questionable earmarks continue to attack my integrity rather than defend their requests I may be compelled to take the most equitable approach possible, which is to force a vote on every single earmark request from Democrats and Republicans alike. The impending omnibus would provide such an occasion. I can’t think of a better way to spend the holidays than to invite taxpayers to study each and every special-interest ornament politicians will hang on this year’s congressional Christmas tree. Washington Whatever happened to fiscal conservatism? We applaud Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, is waging a great fight against porkbarrel spending. This past week he tried to prioritize children's health care above lawmakers' phony pet projects. On Tuesday, Mr. Coburn offered an amendment that would have stalled funding for pork projects until Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt certified that every child in this country had health insurance. Mr. Coburn's colleagues voted down his amendment by a 68-26 vote, including 23 members of his own party who disdained Mr. Coburn's attempt at spending restraint. After rejecting Senator Coburn's measure, senators then attached $400 million in earmarks, many unrelated, to an appropriations bill funding the Departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. Thes unrelated pork projects and their outrageous costs ranged from $1 million for a celebration at Vermont's Lake Champlain to $500,000 for field trips to the Chesapeake Bay. There was even a curious provision for $500,000 toward a "virtual herbarium" in New York and $50,000 for an ice center in Utah. It is unconscionable that senators were willing to place these projects above health-care reform. Mr. Coburn was able to stop a $1 million provision that would have gone toward a museum memorializing the 1969 Woodstock music festival. That of course was Hillary Clinton pandering to the now almost grown up 60's Hippie blame America/hate America crowd which still lives in la la land. ####
Senate's Most Wanted At least I think the title was meant to be facetious although the content certainly was not. The article begins with: There's a desperate new manhunt across the country, and the suspects are no less than 91 Members of the world's greatest deliberative body. One of these Senators has a big secret, and we should all have some fun as the foes of government pork try to run the mystery politician to ground. Here's the forensic background: In April, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn introduced legislation that would set-up a database to track an estimated $1 trillion in federal grants, earmarks, contracts and loans. Americans would be able to perform Google-like searches to track how their tax dollars are spent -- or frittered away, as the case may be. Twenty-nine Senators have co-sponsored the bill, and it's a testament to how concerned some are about Washington's miserable spending reputation that the list includes a who's who of Presidential hopefuls, from Hillary Rodham Clinton to George Allen to Bill Frist. Yet most Senators clearly have no desire to shine a light on their spending practices, and at least one -- perhaps more -- has placed a "secret" hold on the legislation. Normally the architects of these holds are exposed within a few legislative days, but with Congress on recess the masked spender has so far evaded capture and public scrutiny. The WSJ further reported that the group Porkbusters had asked its members to pressure Senators to disavow the hold. At the time of the writing of the WSJ article, August 21st, individual names of Senators were being cleared as those Senators denied placing the hold. They had been removed as suspects. The villain trying to keep Senate Pork a secret was still at large. About one week later, the mystery was apparently ended when a group called Porkbusters reported that “Ted Stevens, the Republican Senator from Alaska, was {the}person who put a 'secret hold' on a proposal that would establish an internet site where the public could examine who is getting the billions of dollars in earmarks (pork) each year. It seems he had help from the former Grand Kleagle of KKK Robert Byrd (D-WVa), to secure the secret hold as well. Stevens needs to go, and quickly.” Senator Byrd, years ago was named the “King of Pork” Stevens and Byrd, what a pair.
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