As the Democrats try to pass an end-of-year Omnibus spending bill, Senators are larding up the bloated, $1.1 trillion dollar measure with earmarks. Sen. Tom Coburn's office has done a great job of exposing the vast amount of earmarks in the bill (over 6,700 earmarks) - with a database viewable here.
As usual, there is a great deal of difference between Oklahoma's two Republican senators. Dr. Coburn requested zero earmarks, while Sen. Inhofe's name appears on 42 separate earmarks. Inhofe's earmark requests total over $44.7 million.
Inhofe's earmarks range from a "green fuels" project at TU, to equipment for various medical facilities across the state, to Department of Defense spending. One of his earmarks even deals with the Tulsa river development project that Tulsa voters rejected, and which the state legislature attempted to fund through a bond (first ruled to be unconstitutional logrolling, then passed again in 2009 as a stand-alone measure).
I guess the lesson is if the local voters reject something, get the state -- or even better -- the federal government to pay for it.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR NAME when commenting. Anonymous comments may be rejected if NOT accompanied by a name.
Comments are welcome, but remember - commenting on my blog is a privilege. Do not abuse that privilege, or your comment will be deleted.
Thank you for joining in the discussion at MuskogeePolitico.com! Your opinion is appreciated!