The 'Coburn is Driving Us Crazy' Bill
Senator Tom Coburn, one of the few senators committed to protecting the taxpayer, currently has "holds" on dozens of authorization bills. This means that he is preventing them from getting approved by the Senate without any consideration or debate. He doesn't necessarily object to all of them, he just thinks that the "greatest deliberative body" in the world should at least have an open debate about the merits of the bills, and make them amendable if need be.
Well the old bulls of the Senate don't like this 'fiscal responsibility' mumbo-jumbo that Coburn is talking about. He's blocking their pet projects, by God! So Harry Reid and others have decided to take most, if not, all of the bills currently being blocked by Coburn and offer them as one bill. And let me tell ya, this is a big, ugly, nasty bill.
The "Coburn is Driving Us Crazy" Omnibus is 398 pages long. Preliminary estimates suggest that it includes 36 bills authorizing over $11 billion in new spending...without any spending offsets. The bill also authorizes at least 36 new government programs.
And Senate leaders, with bipartisan support, want to pass all of this into law without debate?
Some of the bills include the infamous Captive Primary Safety Act, which I blogged about before. The Senate version would spend $17 million to prevent the interstate sale of pet monkeys. Another bill would spend $12 million to construct a greenhouse facility in Suitland, Maryland. A very legitimate sounding proposal, the PROTECT Our Children Act authorizes $1.1 billion, but opponents to the bill say it only duplicates current programs.
Reid intended to introduce this bill this week, but Coburn is using every procedure in the Senate rule book to block it. But don't wait. Call your Senators at (202) 225-3121 and tell them to stand with Coburn and the taxpayers by opposing this ridiculous bill. More details to follow...
UPDATE: You can expect several Republicans to go against Coburn. Exhibit #1 is this Politico article. Excerpt:
Republican Senate leaders — terrified by the prospect of losing five or more seats in November — have freed their members to vote however they need to vote to get reelected, even if that means bucking the president or the party’s leadership.
On at least four votes over the past month — Medicare, housing, the GI Bill and the Farm Bill — Republican leaders haven’t even bothered whipping members to toe the party line or back President Bush’s veto threats. Instead, a GOP leadership aide says leaders have told vulnerable senators that it’s all right to “get well” with voters by siding with Democrats on anything but energy and national security.
It’s unusual for rank-and-file members to get a green light to blow off their party leaders. But these are unusual times for Republicans. They are genuinely worried they could get their clocks cleaned in November. The prevailing attitude: It is better to lose some big votes now than big races in November.
