Tom Coburn: “I made the statement--and it is now proving to be true--that it was ethics reform in name only, no substance. We now…”

“I made the statement--and it is now proving to be true--that it was ethics reform in name only, no substance. We now hear an argument that says: We should not pass the most significant portion of the ethics bill in a stand-alone process so that we can, in fact, do what the American people want, which is transparency in this Government. It is interesting, if you know how this place operates, that if in fact you have an earmark reform on appropriations only, and no earmark reform on an authorization, you have no earmark reform because once something is authorized in an authorizing bill through an earmark, it no longer will apply to the appropriations bill. So we will have the same thing going on. The reason we are seeing an objection to earmark reform is because we truly, in the majority of cases, don't want earmark reform.”