Column: Hippie-critical
By Stephen Moore
Wall Street Journal
October 19, 2007
Well, what do you know? For the first time in modern history, the United States Senate yesterday eliminated an earmark. After scores of votes forced by Pork-buster Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Senator finally prevailed 52-44 on a roll call vote to extinguish funding for a $1 million museum to memorialize the 1969 Woodstock Concert. Far out!
The museum came under additional scrutiny this week when it was revealed that after the earmark was inserted into a spending bill back in June, the owner of the property, Alan Gerry, almost immediately sent a maximum $4,600 contribution to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Senator Clinton was a chief sponsor of the earmark. Gerry's wife also gave $4,600 to the Clinton campaign and Gerry wrote a $20,000 check to the Democratic Senatorial Committee. When this information surfaced and Republicans threatened an ethics investigation, it was the beginning of the end for the flower-power museum.
The Coburn amendment, co-sponored by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, also put Senate Democrats in a tight spot because the $1 million of savings were to be directed to children's health. "I'm part of the Woodstock generation," says Mr. Coburn. "But I'm also a member of the baby boom generation that is about to leave trillions of dollars of debt for our children."
Messrs. Coburn and Kyl have won their first small battle in the war against $10 billion per year in earmark pork. There are still at least 11,000 more projects that deserve the same fate. But the normally grumpy Mr. Coburn was overjoyed by yesterday's vote and declared hopefully that "maybe this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius for taxpayers."
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