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Senatorial Smackdown
 By Tom Shoop | Monday, July 28, 2008  |  03:44 PM

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has a simple creed: He doesn't think the government should start new programs -- even good ones -- without checking first to make sure that similar programs don't already exist. And if they do, he says, lawmakers shouldn't start new ones without getting rid of the old ones.

Rather than just make speeches about the issue, or try to gently persuade his colleagues to see things his way, Coburn has taken a far more combative approach: Tying the Senate in knots with holds on legislation and procedural efforts to block bills that he thinks violate his philosophy. In the ever-collegial Senate, that's just not cricket.

Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is taking on Coburn head-on. He's created the "Tomnibus," a $10 billion amalgamation of a series of bills Coburn has blocked, covering everything from a measure to commemorate “The Star-Spangled Banner” to an effort to curb child pornography.

Reid may be pleased that his counterattack has made the front pages of both the Washington Post and the New York Times today. But I have a feeling that all the exposure is just going to embolden Coburn to continue his crusade.



Comments


I say hooray for Coburn! Congress needs to spend more time winnowing out bad and outdated legislation and less time passing new legislation. We need to support the efforts of DownsizeDC to pass the "One Subject at a Time" Act and the "Read the Bills" Act.

Brian Mason  | Thursday, July 31, 2008 |  11:48 AM


Sen. Coburn's statement resonates with some of us who has been in the civil service for years. Over the course of 28 yrs working for USG, I have seen tremendous WASTE, USE, and in some cases ABUSE of taxpayers’ dollars including mine as a citizen. It's shameful if not criminal how political appointees, senior and middle management engage in numerous duplicative efforts either for self gratification or to compete with one another. Programmatic redundancies are abound often in same units, organization or department, and all for the same of building empires of FTEs, to promote friends and cronies by creating a position and pseudo functions of little or no added value to the mission, and end up replicating what is already existing or has existed and reached the point of diminishing returns. I can only hope Congress w/could find the way to force the issue on the Executive Branch to undertake a massive cleanup and provide an exemplary performance in “lean and clean” government!!

mn  | Tuesday, July 29, 2008 |  11:37 AM


There is something wrong with this guy he slinks around living in a 5 star hotel in DC and says he's not on the take. He took Indian money and then claimed he didn't rip them off. Think Harry has spent too much time in the uranium mine

dan ketter  | Monday, July 28, 2008 |  08:17 PM


I, for one, respect Mr. Coburn's authoritay.

Betsy Ross  | Monday, July 28, 2008 |  04:50 PM



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Government Executive Editor Tom Shoop takes a look at news and events affecting the federal bureaucracy, from the perspective of a longtime observer of government.

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