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Coburn objects to earmarks irrespective of partisanship
By Senator Tom Coburn
The Hill
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.
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