My Hero
It’s about time we found a true budget-cutting conservative in the Senate. Thank God for Tom Coburn. In this Sunday’s column, George Will describes him as “the very unclubbable senator.” Here’s more of Will’s column:
Coburn came to the nation’s attention last October when he proposed taking the $223 million earmarked for Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere” and using it to repair a New Orleans bridge destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Because this threat to Alaska also threatened Congress’ code of comity, mutual respect for everyone’s parochial interests, his proposal lost by 67 votes. But rather than do the decent thing, apologize, tug his forelock and slink away chastened, he refused to stop talking about it, made it an embarrassment to the Senate and catalyzed revulsion against spending that is both promiscuous and parochial.
Thank God he didn’t “slink away chastened.” Thank God he “made it an embarrassment to the Senate.” That’s what should’ve happened long ago. Because of his actions in standing up to the porkmeisters, he’s found a new ally, John McCain. Between the two of them, I expect them to get earmark reform passed before this summer’s recess. And America will be far better off because of it.
Last year’s Highway Bill contained an obscene $25+ BILLION worth of earmarks in it, including the hideous “Bridge to Nowhere” in Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens’ home state. That funding deserved to get cut.
Embarrassment is supposed to motivate improved education in grades K through 12 under No Child Left Behind: That law provides for identifying failing schools, the presumption being that communities will blush, then reform. And embarrassment is Coburn’s planned cure for Congress’ earmark culture.
Sens. Coburn and McCain have introduced earmark reform legislation. Now that it’s been introduced, I’m betting that it’ll pass. If it’s signed into law, it’ll be nearly impossible to get earmarks passed because it will be too embarassing for some of these projects to get submitted.
Under the Coburn-McCain legislation, all earmarks would be identified as to who wanted which earmarks inserted, a ’shaming mechanism’ if ever there was one; the earmarks would have their own separate votes, meaning they’d have to debate the merits of each one separately, meaning that there’d be a record on which senators had the worst pork addiction.
The very unclubbable senator is Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn, 57, a freshman Republican whose motto could be: “Niceness is overrated.” Coburn is the most dangerous creature that can come to the Senate, someone simply uninterested in being popular.
‘Washington experts’ act with a dumbfoundedness towards George Bush because he does what makes sense to him and forgets about polls. People pass his agenda, not because he’s got glittering poll numbers but because opposing them would open the dissenters to legitimate criticism for opposing his legislation.
Harry Reid’s “We just killed the Patriot Act” statement is a perfect example of that. Reid got pummeled for saying that and now the Patriot Act that Reid ‘killed’ will be passed this week. This happened when Bush’s poll ratings were awful so they should’ve defeated it with ease.
Likewise, Coburn ignores the polls, conventional wisdom and the ‘Washington experts’ like David Gergen and simply gets things accomplished because to do otherwise, Coburn’s opponents would look like pork barrons who only cared about spending money instead of working hard to reduce and eventually eliminate the deficit. What makes Coburn’s, and Bush’s, strategy work is that there’s an instinct in Washington that’s even stronger than spending and that is the instinct of getting re-elected.
I think Coburn and McCain know that they’ve got the Sultans of Pork over a barrel on earmark reform. I find that idea especially soothing.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing
February 13th, 2006 at 8:37 am
Why is it the party that used to stand for fiscal conservatism has one lone voice? That’s just sad. Of course, this begs the question, why aren’t grass-roots Republicans demanding their Senators show more fiscal sense? Is it because special interests dominate the funding scene in Washington or because no one minds when their Senators ‘bring home the bacon’? I grew up in Alaska and I always find it more than a bit amusing (as well as hypocritical) that the state that prides itself on it’s rugged independence and self-reliance (and almost always sends Republicans to Washington) is also the state the depends the most on Federal pork money. You’d think they’d stop voting for Ted Stevens but, no, they keep sending him.
February 13th, 2006 at 9:20 am
If you haven’t noticed, conservatives have been raising the roof on fiscal responsibility since mid-summer. And Coburn isn’t the lone conservative voice. Don’t forget Mike Pence, John Campbell, Jeff Flake and J.D. Hayworth in the House and John McCain, Sam Brownback, Richard Burr & Norm Coleman in the Senate.
I admit, though, that there aren’t enough representatives and senators that are fiscal hawks.
As for the part about not bucking the special interests who fund them, some aren’t willing to break this ‘trust’ but I’ll guarantee you that there’s plenty of candidates that are just as worried of the voters they’ll need for re-election.
February 13th, 2006 at 10:05 am
They might get re-elected if they spent less money and lowered taxes, but hey, maybe that’s just me. ;-)