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Editorial: Oinking senators
Washington Times
October 25, 2007
Whatever happened to fiscal conservatism?
We applaud Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, for fighting the good fight against porkbarrel spending. While he lost a battle this week on a vote that would have prioritized children's health care above lawmakers' superfluous pet projects, we laud his promise to continue fighting the war against needless earmarks.
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 smacked down his amendment by a 68-26 vote, a tally that included 23 members of his own party defecting from his movement toward fiscal restraint.
After rejecting Mr. Coburn's measure, senators then proceeded to attach $400 million in earmarks, many unrelated, to an appropriations bill funding the Departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. Such unrelated pork projects and their hefty price tags 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.
There was one victory was last week, however, when Mr. Coburn was able to nix a $1 million provision that would have gone toward a museum memorializing the 1969 Woodstock music festival. The Senate voted 52-42 to reject the measure and instead fund maternal health care. Why did the Woodstock project got the ax while the other extraneous projects were rubber stamped?
Mr. Coburn's home-state newspaper, the Oklahoman, has dubbed him "Tom Quixote," sadly these days an accurate moniker since Mr. Coburn's fight is certainly strenuous. Further stymying his efforts are his Republican colleagues, including GOP leaders, who are unwilling to assume the mantle of fiscal restraint, once a trademark Republican principle championed by Ronald Reagan. Mr. Coburn has said he may force a vote on every additional earmark that could come before a possible omnibus spending bill. We hope it doesn't have to come to that, but we're not holding our breath.
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