Coburn Nets Another Victory in Realigning Funds for Spending Bill Earmark
By Alex Wayne
Congressional Quarterly
October 19, 2007
Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn added to a small collection of Senate earmarks he has managed to strip from appropriations bills, with his win Thursday to eliminate funding for a museum celebrating the 1969 Woodstock music festival.
The Senate voted, 42-52, against tabling, or killing, a Coburn amendment to the fiscal 2008 spending bill for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (HR 3043) that would remove a $1 million earmark for the Woodstock museum. His proposal, which was subsequently adopted by voice vote, dedicated the money instead to health programs for pregnant women.
“Maybe this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius for taxpayers,” Coburn said in a statement afterward.
His spokesman, John Hart, said the earmark was the third that Coburn has succeeded in striking since joining the Senate in 2005. The senator won the elimination of $15 million in a bill last year for promoting seafood consumption; the Senate also adopted a Coburn amendment to an emergency supplemental bill (HR 1591) that struck a $2 million earmark for the University of Vermont. The supplemental was vetoed May 1.
The Woodstock provision had been included in the Labor-HHS-Education spending bill at the behest of Democratic Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. Schumer said the museum is a top economic development priority for Sullivan County, where the concert was held, and that local officials requested it.
“The people of Sullivan County, as well as the people of the rest of New York, elected myself and Sen. Clinton to try and help them with their specific needs as well as make the country a better place,” Schumer said. “We don’t tell them what’s good for them . . . we defer to their decision.”
USA Today reported this week that Allen Gerry, the billionaire owner of the Woodstock site, where the museum will be constructed, made large contributions to Schumer’s and Clinton’s campaigns after the Senate Appropriations Committee included the earmark this year.
Another earmark fared better, with a 34-61 vote to defeat an amendment by Jim DeMint, R-S.C., to strip $2 million for projects at the City University of New York that would be named for House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y. The projects include a public policy institute, a conference center and a library, as well as an office for Rangel, according to DeMint’s staff.
“Washington has reached the point of absurdity when a member of Congress can create a monument to himself at taxpayer expense,” DeMint said in a statement. “I’m embarrassed that my Senate colleagues didn’t have the courage today to stand up for taxpayers.”
A spokesman for Rangel did not respond to a request for comment.
Thursday marked the second day of debate on the spending bill; work will continue next week, said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The bill would provide $606 billion for the three departments it covers, plus some independent agencies such as the Social Security Administration. Of the total, $149.9 billion is discretionary spending. The rest is mostly for large entitlements: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and unemployment insurance.
The Senate bill’s discretionary spending represents a $5.4 billion increase over what was enacted in fiscal 2007 and is $9.6 billion more than President Bush requested. It contains $1.9 billion less than the House-passed version.
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