Earth to Princess Patty:End Earmarks

Sen. Tom Coburn(R-Ok):

John McCain and I recently delivered a letter to our colleagues announcing our intention to challenge every individual earmark on the floor of the Senate. Many senators, staff and reporters have asked if we are serious. The answer is yes.

I am convinced that forcing hundreds or, if necessary, thousands of votes to strike individual earmarks is the only way to produce meaningful results for American taxpayers. Bringing the Senate to a standstill for as long as it takes would be a small price to pay for shutting down what Jack Abramoff described as Congress's "earmark favor factory." The battle against pork is crucial. Pork is the root cause of the unholy relationship between some members of Congress, lobbyists and donors. Inside Congress, the pork process is effectively a black market economy: Thousands of instances exist where appropriations are leveraged for fundraising dollars or political capital. It is delusional to claim Congress can redeem its relationship with K Street without eliminating earmarks. The problem is not lobbyists. The problem is us.

More from George Will on "The Senate's Dr. No"

Coburn is an obstetrician, not a political philosopher, so he may not realize he is acting on the precepts Edmund Burke explained to the Bristol voters who elected him to Parliament in 1774. Burke said: Parliament is not an assemblage of ``ambassadors from different and hostile interests''; its business is the national interest, not ``local purposes'' or ``local prejudices.''

And recounts a Coburn run-in with pompous Sen. "Princess" Patty Murray (who after Sept. 11th commended Osama for building daycare centers, mixing him up with Hamas(!). This time she is in favor of sculpture gardens, invoking the royal "we":

When Coburn disparaged an earmark for Seattle -- $500,000 for a sculpture garden -- Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., was scandalized: ``We are not going to watch the senator pick out one project and make it into a whipping boy.'' She invoked the code of comity: ``I hope we do not go down the road deciding we know better than home state senators about the merits of the projects they bring to us.'' And she warned of Armageddon: ``I tell my colleagues, if we start cutting funding for individual projects, your project may be next.'' But Coburn, who does not do earmarks, thinks Armageddon sounds like fun.

Hey, why should the rest of the country pay for the Pompous Princess Patty Memorial Sculpture Garden?

End earmarks now.