Senate Candidates Say They’ll Continue Earmark Ban

Republicans running to replace Sen. Tom Coburn say they’ll abstain from earmarks
by Chris Casteel

WASHINGTON — It is Sen. Tom Coburn’s signature issue. Early in his tenure, he began his crusade to attack government waste by trying to eliminate pork barrel projects. The late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens exploded when Coburn offered an amendment to kill the so-called bridge to nowhere.

So would Oklahoma Republicans nominate a replacement for Coburn this year who didn’t share his strong opposition to earmarks?

Coburn, R-Muskogee, and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, are deeply divided on the matter. And the race to replace Coburn comes at a time when the debate — mostly dormant since 2010 — has been revived by comments from some Democrats expressing the need for lawmakers to once again exert their spending priorities through earmarks.

Both senators have written newspaper columns in the past few weeks, with Coburn arguing in the Wall Street Journal that “restoring earmarks in today’s Congress would be like opening a bar tab for a bunch of recovering alcoholics.”

Inhofe countered in Investor’s Business Daily: “Today nameless, faceless bureaucrats behind the president control how taxpayer money is spent, and no one is able to be held accountable for whether that project is waste or not.”

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