Posted on 10/21/2005 6:58:12 AM PDT by Osage Orange
Coburn's Proposals Get KO'd In Senate Spat
By Chris Casteel
The Oklahoman
WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn's pork-busting got personal Thursday, prompting the equivalent of a schoolyard brawl in the staid Senate. Though Coburn wound up being pummeled like a new kid who doesn't know the playground rules, he got in a few licks before losing.
Coburn, the freshman Republican from Muskogee, started the fight when he tried to knock out some "special projects" from a spending bill, including $500,000 for a sculpture garden at a Seattle art museum and another $950,000 for a parking lot at an art museum in Nebraska.
The projects were in the portion of the spending bill that funds the Housing and Urban Development Department.
"What's more important -- feeding people and housing people or building a sculpture park?" Coburn said, noting that 15,590 homeless people are in the state of Washington.
Senators ultimately decided to preserve the funding for the sculpture park.
Though many lawmakers will criticize so-called pork barrel projects and curse their effect on the national debt, they don't typically offer amendments aimed at stripping a colleague's home-state projects from a bill and force them to justify the spending.
And most senators -- including Oklahoma U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe -- didn't appreciate Coburn's efforts to do that Thursday.
Coburn got the strongest rebuke from U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., who managed the spending bill on the Senate floor.
Bond, seeming to mock the Senate convention of complimenting colleagues during debate, talked about Coburn's habit of practicing medicine during Senate breaks and said he envied Coburn's abilities.
Then he delivered the blow.
"You know what I do when I have time off?" Bond said. "I travel around the state."
He said he goes to communities to find out whether they need a county health center or improved water and sewer facilities.
"They know I'm not a physician," Bond said. "But they know I'm up here to serve and represent them."
Bond asked about funding in the bill for an Indian museum in Ponca City.
Coburn said he didn't know anything about it and that Inhofe must have requested it. He said he would offer an amendment to strip funding for that project.
Ryan Thompson, a spokesman for Inhofe, said the bill included $200,000 for Ponca City to help build a museum and statue commemorating Ponca Chief Standing Bear. The request came from Inhofe.
Responding to Bond, Coburn said he was offended at the suggestion he had sacrificed meetings with his constituents to practice medicine.
"I'm listening to the people of Oklahoma," he said, adding that he had been in almost every county in the state since being elected and was trying to fulfill his campaign promise to reign in federal spending.
"This isn't a water treatment program. This is a sculpture park," Coburn said.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., then calmly defended the sculpture park and said senators who voted to strip it out might have their own projects scrutinized.
Bond made a motion to postpone Coburn's proposals to kill projects in Washington, Nebraska and Rhode Island, and the Senate rebuked Coburn with a vote of 86-13.
Inhofe, who voted against Coburn's proposal, said later he respected what Coburn was trying to do, "but his amendment does not accomplish what he set out to achieve. Trying to pass an amendment to eliminate projects that senators from these respective states thought in the best interest of their constituents would not have saved one nickel."
After a brief afternoon break, Coburn started the battle again with an amendment to kill $75 million in funding for two controversial bridge projects in Alaska -- one dubbed "The Bridge to Nowhere." Coburn wanted to redirect the money to an Interstate 10 bridge in New Orleans that Hurricane Katrina damaged.
U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, became enraged, shouting on the Senate floor that one state shouldn't be singled out to lose money that Congress had approved.
He said he would resign if the Senate voted to kill his state's bridge funding.
Inhofe, whose committee wrote the highway bill authorizing the Alaska bridge projects, stood to object to Coburn's amendment, reiterating that lawmakers should be able to judge what's good for their states.
Coburn's amendment went down 15 to 82.
Inhofe not a conservative ping
Where does Inhofe get off saying...cutting those pork-barrel projects..wouldn't save "one nickel"?
I've about had it with all these freaking good ol' boy bloated pigs..!!
Okay...I feel better now.
we need a lot more of this
Way past time for another revolution.
The reason I, and I believe many other Oklahomans voted for Coburn is that we want him to shake up the good'ole boy system that is the U.S. Senate. Too bad if they don't like it.
We should mail packs of bacon to our RINO senators. Including mine, Cochran and Lott.
Better yet tea bags!!
Amen to that!!
Inhoff's next election could be interesting..... Maybe he should run for tribal chief or something instead of Senator :)
Take a little time today to voice your disgust fellow Freepers!
1-202-224-3004 Senator Ted Stevens ALASKA
1-202-224-4721 Senator James Inhofe Oklahoma
1-202-224-5721 Senator Kit Bond Missouri
Just called another GOP "king of pork" senator, Chuck Grassley. Demanded an explanation of why he voted to fund this abomination. These guys are absurd and useless. I want to see a plan to cut spending.
Which party is going to lead such a revolution?
Correct -- it would have saved MILLIONS of dollars! RINOs and 'RATS = pigs. Why we must have lifetime term limits at all levels of government.
The party of "I'm not gonna take this anymore"?
I just sent all of them email via www.senate.gov
Revolution via ideology, not party.
Inhofe USED to be a good conservative. Unfortunately the Senate has infected him with "lost-my-conservatism-itis."
OK...so?
I Know, It is very sad! Kit Bond has let people down as well!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.