Coburn seeks slash in federal spending

Transcript of the interview

Even though Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, Washington remains a hostile place for any conservative determined to rein in federal government spending.

Just ask Sen. Tom Coburn, the freshman Republican from Oklahoma, who last week tried trimming $2.7 billion out of the $14 billion in special projects that the Senate loaded onto its “emergency” war spending bill.

Sitting in his office on a recent morning after two weeks of constant battle with Senate spenders, Mr. Coburn was upbeat over how much he had managed to save for the American taxpayer.

“Fifteen million,” he boasted wryly, fully grasping what a small dent that put in the $14 billion in added pork.

But he said there was a point anyway.

“But remember, we’re not measuring it that way,” he said of the staggering amount of pork that still got through. “This is a long-term strategy to change the behavior in the Congress and to change that behavior by exciting the American people and having them start paying attention. And they are.”

Mr. Coburn pointed to a poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal that showed the No. 1 priority American voters have for Congress is ending the process of “earmarks,” the special projects that members of Congress insert into spending bills to curry political favor.

That the issue has become of such urgent concern to voters is in no small measure because of the single-minded efforts of Mr. Coburn, who won election to the Senate just two years ago. Before that, he entered the House as one of the Republican “Class of 1994,” but left in 2001, keeping his pledge to serve only three terms.

That the issue has become of such urgent concern also has to do with the extravagant examples of pork that Mr. Coburn has hauled out of the shadows, onto the Senate floor and for days ridiculed on national television.

Mr. Coburn called it outrageous to saddle taxpayers in all 50 states with a bill for $700 million for moving a railroad in Mississippi that helps few outside that state other than wealthy railroad companies.

“So, if we educate the American people enough to where they ask good questions, you can’t defend it,” he said.

When Mr. Coburn picks a fight with one of his colleagues over spending, he doesn’t look for someone smaller than himself. Rather, he has always gone after the biggest and strongest in the room: the men who have led the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Last year, there was the famous “bridge to nowhere,” a $230 million project inserted into a transportation bill by former Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens of Alaska. The bridge would connect a remote island with 50 residents to another remote Alaska island.

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