Coburn questions choosing museum over medical care
By Chris Casteel
The Oklahoman
October 19, 2007
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted with Sen. Tom Coburn on Thursday to eliminate funding for a "Woodstock museum” and spend the money instead for child health care.
In one of his rare victories to strip earmarked spending, Coburn defeated a project promoted by New York Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer; the senators requested $1 million for the Bethel Performing Arts Center, which is planned in part as a tribute to the 1969 Woodstock music festival.
Coburn, R-Muskogee, said the museum project might have merit but wasn't a priority for a nation with a $10 trillion cumulative debt.
Funding defense
Schumer, a Democrat, defended the Woodstock funding as necessary for economic development in a chronically depressed part of New York.
Schumer said some of the people decrying the national debt also had voted for massive tax cuts.
"Debt for tax cuts and debt for spending programs is the same thing,” Schumer said.
Coburn's response
Coburn countered that he didn't support tax cuts that weren't offset with corresponding cuts in spending.
He said Woodstock was "clearly part of our history.”
But he said, "The question is: Should this be a priority for this body over our women and children?”
Coburn's amendment shifted the $1 million from the museum project to the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant program. The Senate accepted Coburn's amendment.
Coburn said after the vote, "Maybe this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius for taxpayers.”
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