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Dec
Tom Coburn - Dr. No
The Wall Street Journal has a good article about Senator Tom Coburn, who has blocked 90 bills in 2007. We should all be thankful to him for stopping wasteful projects.
Stopping stuff is Sen. Coburn’s specialty. In a Congress that has had trouble passing even the simplest legislation, Sen. Coburn, who proudly wears the nickname “Dr. No,” is a one-man gridlock machine. This year, the senator, who indeed is a medical doctor, single-handedly blocked or slowed more than 90 bills, driving lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to distraction.
In a time where our Congressmen and Senators clearly are on a spending spree, Dr. Coburn actually stops bills to make them be debated without having them simply rushed through the Senate. He uses a tactic called a “Hold” to accomplish this.
Sometimes, Dr. Coburn, an obstetrician who sees patients one morning a week, disagrees with the proposals. As a fiscal conservative, he usually objects to what he sees as excess spending. Sometimes, he just wants to force a debate or improve on items that would otherwise fly through the Senate. In a crowded legislative calendar, not everything gets the scrutiny voters might imagine.
Dr. Coburn’s weapon of choice is the “hold,” a procedural maneuver that allows a single senator to prevent a bill from being passed quickly without a roll-call vote or floor debate. Until a rule change this year, senators could keep their holds secret, and they usually did. Dr. Coburn notifies colleagues about his intentions.
We need more of this type of person in Washington - one that will actually look at bills in their entirety and not rush them through due to lack of time or the guilt-ridden name that is often times attached to a bill. He goes on to say that just because he uses a perfectly legitimate tactic, he is not exclusively to blame:
Dr. Coburn says he isn’t to blame for slow progress. Democrats used too much floor time debating the Iraq war, he says, and tried to move too many bills on the fast track. He notes he didn’t try to stop the spending bill, the only legislation Congress technically must pass in order to keep the government running.
[...] Thomas has some profound praise for the one-man gridlock machine Senator Tom Coburn: We need more of this type of person in [...]
December 21st, 2007 at 1:59 pm[...] December 21, 2007 · No Comments Cross-posted from The Roundtable [...]
December 21st, 2007 at 2:09 pmMerry Christmas, Craig!
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December 30th, 2007 at 2:22 pm[...] are hearing that Obama wants change in this country. However, Tom Coburn (who I wrote about here), desires real change that would stop us from bankrupting this country. The video is fairly short [...]
April 11th, 2008 at 11:02 am