Excerpt
Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, is committed to opposing a supplemental spending bill that includes $33.5 billion to escalate war in Afghanistan, unless the funds to pay for it are found.
On May 10th Senator Coburn wrote to his colleagues asking for their support for an amendment that would offset the new spending in this bill with cuts elsewhere. I spoke on Monday with Senator Coburn's communications director John Hart who assured me that Coburn intends to oppose the supplemental spending bill unless such an amendment is passed.
Hart said that Senator Coburn's position is that our nation is spending way beyond our means, that Congress has been violating PAYGO rules frequently (statutory rules requiring that all spending be paid for with new revenue or offsetting cuts). Hart said that Senator Coburn has frequently put holds on bills and believes this is justified in the current instance, regardless of whether he's been completely consistent in the past. The PAYGO statute makes an exception for supplemental war spending, but -- as Coburn points out -- this spending blatantly violates the spirit of PAYGO.
Humm.... Now where was Coburn when Bush kept the Iraq and Afghanistan wars totally off the books?
No comments:
Post a Comment