Tom Coburn has made a name for himself trying to bring about fiscal discipline. Coburn star... Budget Nag...
Coburn has described earmarks as a “gateway drug” for government excess, spending irrationality, and influence by special-interest groups. In the fall of 2005 he upset the Senate code of comity by challenging one of the body’s most senior and powerful figures, Ted Stevens of Alaska, when he proposed shifting the $223 million earmarked for Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere” to repair a New Orleans bridge destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. He enraged Stevens, who threatened to resign at one point, and lost the effort to remove the bridge by over 60 votes. Nevertheless, the point was made and the gauntlet thrown down.
More important, perhaps, than the daily fight over earmarks was his championing of S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. Co-sponsored by Barak Obama, S. 2590 passed in September 2006 and established an online, public search-engine and database to track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and loans. Coburn says that greater transparency will bring “more accountability” and that media, watchdog groups, and political challengers will have the “tool” they never had to demonstrate the profligacy of government. As Schatz describes it, “The way to change the whole process is to change how taxpayers view it.” By exposing the details of government spending and grants, Coburn and his supporters hope to provide the public and political challengers with political ammunition to finally return rationality to the budgeting process.
Some contend that these efforts may make good headlines, but they miss the big picture. Depending on the group doing the calculation, earmarks make up 1-2 percent of spending if entitlement expenditures are included, and 5 percent if they are not. Nevertheless spending watchdogs see Coburn’s efforts as a worthwhile attack on what Slivinski says is the “entrenched pathology” of fiscal mismanagement. These groups hope that with a more interested public, Coburn and others can move to long-term problems like entitlement reform.
Coburn agrees, and points to his efforts to reform the health system by the introduction last month of his “Universal Health Care Choice and Access Act,” which includes provisions to create a competitive national market for health insurance, tax rebates for individuals, and increased consumer choice for Medicare coverage-plans rather than what he calls “Government-run, ‘Big Brother’ health care plans.” He also believes that Social Security reform, including voluntary personal savings accounts, was “not promoted properly” and that the public is far more receptive to reform than politicians believe.
Will Coburn eventually be worn down? He sounds unbowed and talks with enthusiasm about transforming “[politics] based on fear to politics based on courage.” Nevertheless, he warns supporters that he does not expect significant change in the next six months or year and that they’re going to “need some elections” before his message of fiscal sanity wins the day. Bloggers and watchdog groups think and hope he keeps up the fight. “NZ Bear” opines: “As for Senate collegiality and decorum wearing them down —- I don’t think Coburn is wear-downable.” For now, fiscal conservatives encourage him to keep his “teeth in the trousers” and continue his battle against a budget process they view as still badly in need of reform.
Just Can’t Get Enough? The Editors also think bringing pork to light makes sense. Stephen Spruiell writes a series on pork . Kate O’Beirne wonders why Coburn’s Senate colleagues wouldn’t want him to spend more time as a doctor. Brian Riedl is certainly no fan of pork , but Ramesh Ponnuru argues that cutting down on earmarks won’t reduce spending by much.
This is cache, read story here