Go Sen. Coburn!!!!

Finally there is someone in the senate who is talking sense. Senator Tom Coburn makes some great points about the stimulus plan and details what should and shouldn’t be included in a bill to help boost the economy. He also points out that we are repeating the very same mistakes that got us into this mess.

It's time for government to quit masking the symptoms and deal with this crisis
at its source: toxic assets in the mortgage market and a federal government that
continues to pollute our economy with pork and failed interventionist policies.

You can find the whole text of his oped piece on his website. His plan and his amendments focus on FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY. Finally SOMEBODY is speaking the right language!

These are the amendments to the bill the Sen. Coburn is pushing. They are a good start. If you go to his website and check here he gives a comprehensive list of the pork and just plain bad ideas that are in the bill.

1. Require that all money in the bill given to states be a loan that must be repaid.
2. Strike $246 million “Hollywood earmark” for the purchase of motion picture film.
3. Strike “biggest earmark of all time” – $2 billion for FutureGen clean coal power plant.
4. Sense of the Senate that the Congress should support President Obama’s “Plan for Restoring Fiscal Discipline.” (Specifically relating to cutting costs and inefficiencies of government.)
5. No funds shall be used for casinos, aquariums, zoos, museums, golf courses, or swimming pools (mirror House language).
6. No more than $1 billion may be spent on projects for federal agencies inside the beltway.
7. Require that any contract that is awarded must be competitively bid.
8. Convert $9 billion for broadband into loans for internet service providers/telecom companies to build infrastructure in market-sustainable areas.
9. Prohibit any Corps construction funds appropriated in this Act from being used for initial construction projects until all unfinished Corps projects have been completed.
10. No funds from the Federal Building Fund may be used to construct new federal buildings until the government reduces its inventory of surplus/excess real property by 50 percent as of the date of bill passage.
11. None of the funds made available for the National Park Service may be expended unless such funding directly reduces the deferred maintenance backlog.
12. Strike authority for the Director of Indian Health Service to spend all health information technology funds ($85 million) at his discretion, regardless of current law (competitive awards, bidding, etc).
13. Cut $3.25 billion in funding for Workforce Investment Act programs since WIA has not been reauthorized and GAO has found duplicative job-training programs across 8 different federal agencies.
14. No funds in the Act may go to a public or private institution of high education that has an endowment of more than $15 billion and/or spends more than $100,000 on lobbying annually. 15. Make the “making work pay” tax credit non-refundable (the plan to give $500 or $1,000 checks of every family).