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| Coburn blamed for killing bills |
| 2006-12-13 |
| TULSA, Okla. Senator Tom Coburn is being blamed for killing bills in Congress that would fight breast cancer, help keep former convicts out of prison and help feed the hungry. Senators can place holds on bills to prevent them from coming to a vote and Coburn has used the privilege to block bills he says is a waste of taxpayer money. The breast cancer bill would have provided 30 million dollars over five years to study environmental causes of breast cancer. The bill to help former inmates stay out of prison called for 100 million dollars to expand programs to providing housing, education and drug treatment for released inmates. Coburn lifted his hold at the last minute on the bill to increase funding to local anti-hunger organizations but the House later declined to vote on it. Bills that don't pass by final adjournment automatically die and must be reintroduced when the new Congress convenes next year. |
| Posted by:.com |
| #9 The final decade of my father's career was financed by Nixon's initiative, Procopius2k. Interferon was one of the results, although Daddy never got to follow through on his initial experiments. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-12-13 13:35 |
| #8 Back in the early 70s, Nixon declared a 'War on Cancer'. Trillions of dollars spent on unending academic/medical research welfare has yield very little in the terms of effectiveness. The money was and is more important than the disease victims to the institutions. They wrap in all the right PC speak, but its the same freak show barker in front of the tent selling a show and not return on the investment both of money and trust of the people. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2006-12-13 13:05 |
| #7 Thanks for pointing that out, Dr. Steve. Coburn is a very important fighter to eliminate waste on these earmarks. He's the very one who stopped the "bridge to nowhere" funding ,and made the jackass Ted Stevens (R., Sen. Alaska)boiling mad. I'd hate to see a smear campaign damage Coburn in any way. He's what is needed in government. Dinos like Stevens are what need to be eliminated. |
| Posted by: SpecOp35 2006-12-13 11:36 |
| #6 On the breast cancer study: if it was worth doing, it was worth putting through the usual process: allocate the money to NIH in their budget, have the NIH issue an RFA (request for applications), review said applications at a study section, and have the appropriate council at NIH approve the highest-scoring applications. That's how it's done (full disclosure: I've sat on NIH study sections and am currently an NIH grant holder). The issue here was that the earmark wasn't going through the usual process. I get angry when I see money spent on biomedical research outside the NIH process, because then there's no review and no guarantee of the quality of the proposal, let alone the work. Coburn was right to stop it. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2006-12-13 10:46 |
| #5 Who's the AP rookie that wrote this one up? Jeezus, kid. Right in the first line!(R-Oklahoma)! That's gotta be there! People be thinking this guy's a Democrat or something. Keep this up and you'll never work in this town again! |
| Posted by: tu3031 2006-12-13 10:13 |
| #4 Tons of added on garbage and questionable science that profited pork patrons were in those bills, and they were NOT properly presented nor debated nor publicised the way spending should be. What you're seeing here is the MSM bing used by the old porkers (Dem and Repub) to smear a reformer. Dirty pool and mindless cheapshotting by the press. Expect to see more of it. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2006-12-13 09:58 |
| #3 "...environmental causes of breast cancer..." That's the cue. The breast cancer is an excuse, the real focus is spending vast amounts of money on things that *might* cause breast cancer. Ponies, cheese-whiz, meteorites, Nostradamus, whatever. Vast amounts of money can be spent without doing anything more than subsidizing leftist scientists. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-12-13 08:50 |
| #2 Here, here glenmore. You're probably right, there was probably some sort of ridiculous rider on there that earmarked 300million for Kwanza decorations for the national black caucus or something. We have no way to know unless we get a copy of the draft. I don't think I've ever seen one of those either. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2006-12-13 08:06 |
| #1 Killing a breast cancer fighting bill sounds all cruel and horrible, especially since it would only cost about 2 cents per person per year, but we don't have enough information. Was there some other garbage attached to it? Was it really just a way to funnel 'research' money to somebody's brother-in-law? Was it to support research that was already done but gave the 'wrong' answer about somebody's pet villain? I think I trust Coburn's judgement more than that of the rest of the DC crowd. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2006-12-13 07:53 |