Word: coburn
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...Coburn, a Republican Senator from Oklahoma, has a problem with the $106 billion bill the Senate is working on that would help pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, preparation in case of a breakout of avian flu, rebuilding of the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina - and many tangentially related projects. Well, actually, the first-term Senator has at least 19 concerns. He called $176 million in the bill to refurbish a retirement home in Mississippi for veterans an "arbitrary sum." Another $10 million to equip fishing boats with logbooks to record data on how much they fish they...
...soft-spoken, polite man who has long worked as obstetrician, Tom Coburn has angered senators from the right and the left in his decade-long battle to cut what he considers pork-barrel spending from the federal budget. Coburn has diagnosed such spending, known as earmarks, as "the gateway drug to spending addiction" and he's determined to cure Congress of this malady. As the Senate has worked to pass a key appropriations bill over the last two weeks, Coburn has attached 19 amendments to the bill, all targeting spending provisions he thinks are pork. Most famous for his attacks...
...Such spats would be comical if they did not hint at a worrying lack of understanding on both sides. This defining feature of the relationship was clearly in evidence in late March when U.S. Senators Charles Schumer, Lindsey Graham and Tom Coburn visited Beijing. Schumer and Graham are co-sponsoring a bill - now delayed until the fall - that threatens to slap a 27.5% tariff on Chinese imports to the U.S. unless Beijing allows the Chinese currency to rise sharply, a move the senators believe would help cut America's trade deficit. Chinese businessman Liu Weiping attended a talk given...
...hire lobbyists to make sure they get their share. And while some members, mainly Republicans, have suggested that the real solution to lobbying reform is fixing the budget process so Congress isn't doling out money for individual projects in congressional districts, that's highly unlikely to happen. Tom Coburn, a freshman Senator from Okalahoma, has already become one of his chamber's more unpopular members by repeatedly going to the floor of the Senate and deriding his colleagues for all the money they bring back home to their districts and states...
...think about that and respond later. Obama rarely plays the role of attack dog for his party. "He's very carefully chosen what assignments he will take," says a Senate Democratic aide. Some Democrats complain that his high-profile alliances with Republicans--such as his joining with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate, to push a bill to monitor Hurricane Katrina recovery spending--smack of a man positioning himself for a presidential run. "He needs to be careful not to look too political and too out for himself," says a Democratic strategist. "He needs...