Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) may be slightly imbalanced, but when he campaigned as a fiscal tightwad intent on limiting government spending, he meant it.
Senators, take heed: Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) may have a “hold” on your bill.
The freshman is using his power as a Senator to put a hold — or secret filibuster threat — on any bill he believes would create a new spending program, whether it is included in an appropriations bill or an authorizing bill.
That means that many a Senator’s home-state pet project could be held up indefinitely by a man known for sticking to his guns, even to the point of making enemies.
“I don’t think we ought to be passing new legislation, spending new money when we can’t pay for what we’re doing today, and we’re not willing to cut what we’re doing today,” said Coburn in a recent interview.
Coburn’s serious about this and he’s literally targeting every bill that goes to the Senate floor. I probably disagree with Coburn on just about every political issue imaginable, but I respect his principled approach here.
But to get a sense for what he’s up against, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) was surprisingly candid about his own approach to federal spending.
[D]uring his more than 30 years in Congress, Lott said he has learned something about how to keep the likes of Coburn from stopping his pet projects from becoming law.
“The way I do it is, I fold them into bills where you can’t find it,” Lott said. “I’ve been around here long enough to know how to bury it.”
That old line about never wanting to see how sausages and laws are made is true, isn’t it?