PurpleheartOklahoma (scroll down)

Sen. Tom Coburn is an MD (general practitioner) and Senator from
Okla.and recognized as 'the conscience' of the USSenate. He is well
respected on both 'sides of the aisle' & probably one of the few
senators to actually read these 'bail-out' bills. (Google him for his
background.)  It's from his speech in the Senate.


"We are going in exactly the wrong direction. We ought to be standing on
the principles that made this country great. There ought to be a review
of every program in the Federal Government that is not effective, that
is not efficient, that is wasteful or fraudulent, and we ought to get
rid of it right now. We ought to say, you're gone, to be able to pay for
a real stimulus plan that might, in fact, have some impact.

I would be remiss if I didn't remind everybody that next week we are
going to hear from the Obama administration wanting another $500
billion. Outside of this, they are going to want another $500 billion to
handle the banking system. Still not fixing the real disease-the
pneumonia-we are going to treat the fever or treat the cough, but we are
not going to treat the real disease.

Until we treat the real disease, this is pure waste. It is worse than
pure waste. It is morally reprehensible, because it steals the future of
the next two generations.

I am going to wind up here and finish, but I wanted to spend some time
to make sure the American people know what is in this bill. I think once
they know what is in this bill, they would reject it out of hand.

Let me read for my colleagues some of the things that are in this bill..


The biggest earmark in history is in this bill. There is $2 billion in
this bill to build a coal plant with zero emissions. That would be
great, maybe, if we had the technology, but the greatest brains in the
world sitting at MIT say we don't have the technology yet to do that.
Why would we build a $2 billion power plant we don't have the technology
for that we know will come back and ask for another $2 billion and
another $2 billion and another $2 billion when we could build a
demonstration project that might cost $150 million or $200 million?
There is nothing wrong with having coal-fired plants that don't produce
pollution; I am not against that. Even the  Washington  Post said the
technology isn't there. It is a boondoggle. Why would we do that?

We eliminated tonight a $246 million payback for the large movie studios
in  Hollywood  .

We are going to spend 88 Million to study whether we ought to buy a new
ice breaker for the Coast Guard. You know what. The Coast Guard needs a
new ice breaker. Why do we need to spend $88 million? They have two ice
breakers now that they could retrofit and fix and come up with
equivalent to what they needed to and not spend the $1 billion they are
going to come back and ask for, for another ice breaker, so why would we
spend $88 million doing that?

We are going to spend $448 million to build the Department of Homeland
Security a new building. We have $1.3 trillion worth of empty buildings
right now, and because it has been blocked in Congress we can't sell
them, we can't raze them, we can't do anything, but we are going to
spend money on a new building here in  Washington  .

We are going to spend another $248 million for new furniture for that
building; a quarter of a billion dollars for new furniture. What about
the furniture the Department of Homeland Security has now? These are
tough times. Should we be buying new furniture? How about using what we
have? That is what a family would do. They would use what they have.
They wouldn't go out and spend $248 million on furniture.

How about buying $600 million worth of hybrid vehicles? Do you know what
I would say? Right now times are tough; I would rather Americans have
new cars than Federal employees have new cars. What is wrong with the
cars we have? Dumping $600 million worth of used vehicles on the used
vehicle market right now is one of the worst things we could do.
Instead, we are going to spend $600 million buying new cars for Federal
employees..

There is $400 million in here to prevent STDs .. I have a lot of
experience on that. I have delivered 4,000 babies. We don't need to
spend $400 million on STDs. What we need to do is properly educate about
the infection rates and the effectiveness of methods of prevention. That
doesn't take a penny more. You can write that on one piece of paper and
teach every kid in this country, but we don't need to spend $400 million
on it. It is not a priority.

How about $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs? That might
even be somewhat stimulative. New sewers. That might create jobs.

How about $150 million for a Smithsonian museum? Tell me how that helps
get us out of a recession. Tell me how that is a priority. Would the
average American think that is a priority that we ought to be mortgaging
our kids' future to spend another $150 million at the Smithsonian?

How about $1 billion for the 2010 census? So everybody knows, the census
is so poorly managed that the census this year is going to cost twice-in
2010 is going to cost twice what it cost 10 years ago, and we wasted
$800 million on a contract because it was no-bid that didn't perform.
Nobody got fired, no competitive bidding, and we blew $800 million.

We have $75 million for smoking cessation activities, which probably is
a great idea, but we just passed a bill-the SCHIP bill-that we need to
get 21 million more Americans smoking to be able to pay for that bill.
That doesn't make sense.

How about $200 million for public computer centers at community
colleges? Since when is a community college in my State a recipient of
Federal largesse? Is that our responsibility? I mean, did we talk with
Dell and Hewlett-Packard and say, How do we make you all do better? Is
there not a market force that could make that better?

Will we actually buy on a true competitive bid? No, because there is
nothing that requires competitive bidding in anything in this bill.
There is nothing that requires it. It is one of the things President
Obama said he was going to mandate the Federal Government, but there is
no competitive bidding in this bill at all.

We have $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas. Well, that will
put 10 or 15 people to work. Is that a priority for us right now?

There is $6 billion to turn Federal buildings into green buildings. That
is a priority, versus somebody getting a job outside of  Washington  , a
job that actually produces something, that actually increases wealth?

How about $500 million for State and local fire stations? Where do you
find in the Constitution us paying for local fire stations within our
realm of prerogatives? None of it is competitively bid - not a grant
program.

Next is $1.2 billion for youth activities. Who does that employ? What
does that mean?

How about $88 million for renovating the public health service building?
You know, if we could sell half of the $1.3 trillion worth of properties
we have, we could take care of every Federal building requirement and
backlog we have.

Then there's $412 million for CDC buildings and property. We spent
billions on a new center and headquarters for CDC. Is that a priority?
Building another Government building instead of - if we are going to
spend $412 million on building buildings, let's build one that will
produce something, one that will give us something.

How about $850 million for that most "efficient'' Amtrak that hasn't
made any money since 1976 and continues to have $2 billion or $3 billion
a year in subsidies?

Here is one of my favorites: $75 million to construct a new "security
training'' facility for State Department security officers, and we have
four other facilities already available to train them. But it is not
theirs. They want theirs. By the way, it is going to be in  West
Virginia  ... I wonder how that got there? So we are going to build a
new training facility that duplicates four others that we already have
that could easily do what we need to do. But because we have a stimulus
package, we are going to add in oink pork.

How about $200 million in funding for a lease-not buying, but a lease of
alternative energy vehicles on military installations?

We are going to bail out the States on Medicaid. Total all of the health
programs in this, and we are going to transfer $150 billion out of the
private sector and we are going to move it to the Federal Government.
You talk about back dooring national health care. Henry Waxman has to be
smiling big today. He wants a single-payer Government-run health care
system. We are going to move another $150 billion to the Federal
Government from the private sector.

We are going to eliminate fees on loans from the Small Business
Administration. You know what that does? That pushes productive capital
to unproductive projects. It is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Then there is $160 million to the Job Corps Program-but not for 20 jobs
and not to put more people in the Job Corps but to construct or repair
buildings.

We are going to spend $524 million for information technology upgrades
that the Appropriations Committee claims will create 388 jobs. If you do
the math on that, that is $1.5 million a job. Don't you love the
efficiency of Washingtonthinking?

We are going to create $79 billion in additional money for the States, a
"slush fund,'' to bail out States and provide millions of dollars for
education costs. How many of you think that will ever go away? Once the
State education programs get $79 billion over 2 years, do you think that
will ever go away? The cry and hue of taking our money away - even
though it was a stimulus and supposed to be limited, it will never go
away. So we will continue putting that forward until our kids have grand
kids of their own.

There is about $47 billion for a variety of energy programs that are
primarily focused on renewable energy. I am fine with spending that. But
we ought to get something for it. There ought to be metrics. There are
no metrics. It is pie in the sky, saying we will throw some money at it.


Let me conclude by saying we are at a seminal moment in our country. We
will either start living within the confines of realism and
responsibility or we will blow it and we will create the downfall of the
greatest Nation that ever lived. This bill is the start of that
downfall. To abandon a market-oriented society and transfer it to a
Soviet-style, government-centered, bureaucratic-run and mandated
program, that is the thing that will put the stake in the heart of
freedom in this country.

I hope the American people know what is in this bill. I am doing
everything I can to make sure they know. But more important, I hope
somebody is listening who will treat the pneumonia we are faced with
today, which is the housing and mortgage markets. It doesn't matter how
much money we spend in this bill.

It is doomed to failure unless we fix that problem first. Failing that,
we will go down in history as the Congress that undermined the future
and vitality of this country. Let it not be so."