Redstate

Done.  And also forwarded to others.  

Done - forwarded to email list as well.

I didn't see Pork Barrel Spending on the list of message topics so I settled for Budget. Hope he gets the message. I asked him for some stock tips. You think he will mind?

Heh!

Coburn's office & they seemed surprised to hear from me.  Happy, but surprised.

Then I called Jon Kyl (my favorite AZ senator) and they told me he supported Coburn's amendment and that he had voted AGAINST the transportation bill in the first place.

Kudos to Coburn from the other side of the aisle, too.  I have said that I will forever consider Don Young the bane of Congress if he wouldn't propose this himself. (By the way, his actual response to this possibility was pretty terse.) As much as it pains me to say the following words, I'm completely behind Senator Coburn on this and glad that someone had the courage to suggest it.

Democrats have just as much need to support this.  If we want to believe that government spending can be good, can work, we had better damn well stand up against spending that is on its face pure government waste.  Otherwise we will have no leg to stand on when we talk about "vital" spending (like, oh, say ... disaster relief).  There are things that are cut and dry pork and things that are debatable.

This isn't debatable.

Sorry, I should have mentioned I pulled that link from Kos.  I don't want to be accused of blog plagiarism.

done and forwarded.

The idea sounds great. Pork sucks. NOBODY likes pork...Left or Right. I just hope this bill isn't being labeled with the attractive "eliminate pork spending" moniker to gain support and then end up being something much more deep-reaching that would hurt a lot of unsuspecting people.

I'm gonna post this on Kos too. If the idea is as forthright as advertised, I think Kossack friends would support it.

And a public kudos here for my Senator, Dr. Coburn.  It was his willingness to stand up to Republican leadership in the House that won me over in the primary in 2004.  And I'm glad to see that same maverick* streak is following him into the Senate.

*Of course the media would never call him this even though it applies at least as well to him as it does to McCain and the liberal Republicans like Chafee, Snowe, and Collins.

It's about time some people in Congress started trying to stop the pork.

Kudos to Coburn for standing up for sanity in our budget.

Just a reminder that the following Senators opposed both Pork bills (transportation and energy) this summer.

Voted Against Both Bills:

Gregg (NH)

Kyl (AZ)

McCain (AZ)

Voted Against Transportation Pork Only:

Cornyn (TX)

Voted Against Energy Pork Only:

Martinez (FL)

Sununu (NH)

Chafee (RI)

Just a heads up on who to credit for being consistent against outrageous spending.

I just can't imagine doing that.

I suppose if it is good enough for Saddam and Kim to plaster their name and face all over the place it is good enough for Don.

Good call!!!

The Bridge to Nowhere is a disgrace.

I can't see why any conservative would support it.

on the House for these two bills???

This steady diet, sense the last Presidential election at least, of nothing but social issues was causing a lot of gastric distress and excessive flatulence coming from Washington and our elected politicians. It's also lead to an epidemic of the dreaded pandering disease, but that's another topic.

An occasional serving of social issues in the nations political diet is fine, but too much leads to bloating and discomfort with the general population.

So some good old, fiscal conservative meat and potatoes with a side dish of immigration reform, that's the ticket. Maybe if Executive Chief Bush and serve up some good old fashioned Republican fare, he can follow up with a nice dish of Social Security Reform as desert.

Great information.  While it may do little good I will call both Corzine and Lautenberg tomorrow about this.  This is a worthy amendment.

From another on the other side of the aisle, I plan on calling my two Democratic Senators and urging my support for this amendment.

If our elected leaders can't pass something this logical and important, what are they doing in Washington in the first place?

The $100 Billion (or will it be trillion) manned mission to Mars.  

Thanks for this heads up.  My wife and I used to live in Coburn's congressional district.  It's good to see he still stands up for things on principle.

hey kudos to you guys on this one ... and unbelievably coburn, sensible approaches to bad policies and politics from the right and the left give me hope for this country  - we are all going to need to work together in the future to save what we all love about this country.

W E H Lecky called it class bribery, and that's why it works.  The perversity of it is that this mysteriously homogeneous group known as the people,indistinguishable from an ant hill, is being bribed with their own money.  As rackets go you can't beat that.  The weakness of a democracy is the weakness of it's people, and the ignorance. The converse of that speaks for itself.  I hope for the best but expect both the worst and the usual.   As to the word  "vital" used earlier,  how many programs are not vital when the callous and the rude bring up the distasteful subject of fiscal discipline and it's moral and political necessity.

Greetings RedStaters, from a liberal Kossack who recently signed up on RedState - not to troll or flame arguements - but for issues like this on which we can all agree on.

You might be pleased to learn that there are actually socially liberal people like myself who agree that the government should be run at peak effeciency, even if we disagree on what that means. I know one thing for sure - it DOES NOT mean vanity earmark spending. it DOES NOT mean throwing good money at bad without a plan for how to fix it.

I can't stand Colbourn, but I can stand with him on this.

Glad to have you at RedState.

I used to post at Kos regularly as Doverspa and more recently (and less often) as Adam C.  When I defended Coburn during the election campaign (against some untrue smears coming from Kos diarists), I took a lot of flak over there.

I told them then that of all the Republicans running  in 2004, Coburn was the most likely to do something they would agree with.  Not becuase he's a moderate, but because he's a maverick.  DeMint, Martinez, Thune, Isakson, and Vitter are generally guaranteed R votes on most things and they play inside the system.  Coburn will do what he wants, when he wants.  This is an example of him rocking the boat.

Remember that the reason pork works is because of an unwritten tacit agreement that no Senator will take your pork away if you don't take his.  Coburn is breaching that unwritten rule with this bill.  And if we can persuade others to go along, it could lead to other defections from the system.

That's why I supported Coburn in the primary and the general election despite his more extreme views on social issues that I don't agree with.  

On transportation, it was 417-9 and all no votes were Rs... and I think all are RSC members.

Energy had major Democratic opposition (for non-pork reasons) and it passed 249-143 with 22 R no votes.

thought to replace facts by some on both left and right.

Never the less, there is a movement in the Dems where the old left is being replace by a new set. Roughly they are for fiscal responsiblity in government, less favoritism to corporations and not as dogmatic on social issues.

There could be alot of alliances formed.

We sure dont want people who cant figure out that voting for the Coburn amendment is good running our businesses.  So we had to kick them up to DC.

and of course I support this ammendent, as any sane non-Gravina Island resident would.  But how is this part of "an effort to reign in that out of control spending"?  I mean, the spending is exactly the same either way, right?  I don't think there is a budget line item anywhere for the spending on the LA bridge which could be debited in response to the reassignment of money from the AL bridge.

This is symptomatic of this kind of huge spending appropriation (the Iraq reconstruction money is another) where an enormous amount is budgeted and there's little control or understanding of how it's spent.  Although I'm not necessarily opposed to spending the money, I think the government needs to develop systems, and the allocations need to include auditing staff, so that a proper accounting can be made.

Live from Washington DC, Sen Patty Murray (D-Washington) defending the use of HUD funds to build a scupture park in her state. That in itself is no surprise, but to have Sen. Kit Bond (R-Missouri) defending her pork, his pork, and, by extension, all pork - that's what is really telling.

Coburn's got it right - our spending priorities are completely out of whack. He's not just battling a "bridge to nowhere" or a "museum scupture park" - he's confronting the presumed Senatorial priviledge of pork barrel spending. The bipartisan attack on his ammedments is a good indication that Coburn is striking a nerve.

This just in (I am somewhat listening as I type) - a not-at-all-veiled threat from Senator Murray. She says "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" and that any Senators voting against her earmarks stands a real good chance of her axing their earmarked spending in committee. I contend that would be a good thing, and may even give some rather gutless Senators who would prefer to reign in pork some cover from their own constituents. "It wasn't me who killed the Podunk Dental Floss Museum appropriation, it was that nasty Senate committeewoman from Washington state..."

I'm glad Coburn has the patience to deal with these people. I sure wouldn't.

Rip

Couln't agree more

"and of course I support this ammendent, as any sane non-Gravina Island resident would.  But how is this part of "an effort to reign in that out of control spending"?  I mean, the spending is exactly the same either way, right?  I don't think there is a budget line item anywhere for the spending on the LA bridge which could be debited in response to the reassignment of money from the AL bridge."

The difference is that sooner or later that bridge in LA is going to have to be rebuilt anyway.  And chances are, it will be 100% covered by the feds as noted in the declaration of emergency back in August.  So our options are to either:

a). re-allocate the Alaska money to Loozieanna now and build one bridge,

b). build one bridge in Alaska now, and another bridge in Loozieanna later.  The old government motto, why build one when you can build two at twice the price?

Obviously I'm just speculating but I don't see this as zero-sum.  I'm confident that we will end up paying for that bridge in Loozieanna sooner or later.  And the way I see it, any money shifted from pork to halfway-legitimate spending is a step in the right direction, as it translates into more EFFICIENT use of the same monies.  That's a good stepping stone to an overall reduction in spending.

... it goes something like "Congressmen are like swine; first you have to hit them between the eyes with a stick to get their attention."

Bring it on.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

...mueseum in Nebraska...

...blah, blah blah...

that there will be a sudden outbreak of sanity in DC and we won't do both. The odds are not good mind you, but hope springs eternal ... I'm a half-full kind of guy.

I think, in the huge spending appropriation bill.  If the AL money is moved there, as it should be, the money for the LA bridge will just get spent on something else.

This is probably some of the best spent money around.

The moon exploration created thousands of new products and ideas that we use all the time and solving the problems inherant in a trip to Mars would do so as well.

NOW may not be the best time to do it, but that doesn't make it a bad idea.

...take such an interest in defeating Coburn? Wasn't he running against one of the most conservative Democrats to be nominated by his party for a U.S. Senate seat that year? I thought those were the type of politicians the moonbats reflexively referred to as "fascists," "Quislings," and other such lovely derogations. You would figure they would actually want Coburn, in lieu of someone who might actually move their party back from the fringe of American political discourse.

that with Republican majorities in both chambers of the Legislature and a Republican President, our system of checks and balances would be rendered ineffective, and the ambitions of the ruling party would be allowed to proceed virtually without restraint.

And look what's happened since...

Although, the behavior of the Republican Leadership seems to be less of an indictment of conservatism, and more of a proof that many Republican leaders only pay lip service to conservatism.

Although the far left seems to define the Democrats in the eyes of most conservatives, I think most of us liberals are much more reasonable in their approach to important issues.

If there are conservatives who are willing to support real fiscal responsibility, instead of just reckless tax cuts, and restore a bit of fair play to the markets which are being squeezed by the 500lb gorrilas of massive global conglomerates, we could be a powerful group to reckon with.

It really does seem like this is a period in our history where one of the parties is going to be replaced as a dominant party. I'm just not sure which one yet. If the Democrats were half-way competent, the convergence of public attitudes to the Iraq War, Federal Hurricane Response, budget problems, and numerous legal troubles would seem to be a blow to the Republicans. On the other hand, if the Democrats can't capitalize on the current political climate, then they will pretty much be permanently branded as the party of losers.

Then, I guess the extremists will head to the Green, or Constitutional party depending on what happens....

I believe having anything other than 2 main parties ends up being metastable with our system of government. It ends up collapsing back to a 2 party system as the minority parties join forces to avoid getting walloped in the winner-take-all electoral system.

And a one party system isn't stable for the reasons we're seeing right now.

If every Republican were like Coburn and Inhofe we'd be in much better shape.

Doesn't really require a much new technology.  Pretty much a moonshot +.  Bigger capsule, lander, rockets.  And $100,000,000,000.00 in pork for Houston. For that we could build 8 bridges to nowhere in each of the states.